Restore
by Asuka Kureru
Summary: Cloud and Tifa never hoped to see Aeris or Zack again. They did hope they wouldn't have to deal with Sephiroth anymore. They were wrong on both counts. Meanwhile in Wutai a sinister plot is brewing... Summary and pairings inside. Polyamory.
1. Prologue

**-RESTORE-**

**Author**: Asuka Kureru (askerian (at) hotmail (dot) com)

**Fandom**: Final Fantasy 7 - post-Advent Children, no Dirge of Cerberus, no Crisis Core.

**Summary**: Three years after the events of Advent Children. Cloud and Tifa never hoped they might see Aeris or Zack ever again - and they did hope they wouldn't have to deal with Sephiroth a third time. They were wrong on both counts.

Having their friends back is great, but it also comes with its share of awkwardness, confusion and other, more practical troubles; having to deal with a non-genocidal, newly sane - or is he? - and definitely still bastardlike ex-General doesn't help. Especially when they still have to keep Denzel, Avalanche, WRO and the Turks happy.

Meanwhile in the Wutai court, a sinister plot is brewing that could engulf the whole world once again...

**Genre**: character interaction/action/psychological/romance. Plot. Attempt at redeeming Sephiroth.

**Rating**: R for violence. As for sex : _sensual_ scenes, likely a few; detailed penetration and on-screen orgasms, no.

**Pairings**: Woohoo polyamory. I'm shooting for an OT5 (yes, five XD) but god knows if I'll succeed, I'm letting the characters decide how far they'll go.

It starts out more or less Cloud/Tifa and Zack/Aeris, mostly because two of them were alive and two of them weren't. And then there's Sephiroth. I like every single possible combination between those five people (yes, the gay/lesbian ones too), though some of them require a crap-ton more development and conflict than others; as a result it's likely that not all combinations will actually happen. I'm letting this side of the plot develop on its own instead of planning it all out from the start.

Surprisingly, the plot gets more of the spotlight than the shipping.

**Disclaimer**: These characters and the world they evolve in don't belong to me but to SquareEnix. I make no profit and only lay claim to the plot and eventual OCs.

**I don't bash characters. If you think I'm not handling them in character, please tell me. If you just hate them and wish I would write them out or at least not pair them with X, don't feel that you have to whine to me about it; just go read something else. I will not be changing the plot or the pairings to fit other people's tastes.**

If you have characterization or plotting-related helpful criticism, go ahead, I'm listening.

* * *

**PROLOGUE**

"Hey kiddo. Why the long face?"

The pilgrimages had died down in the last year; Denzel hadn't expected the old church to have visitors at this late hour. He jumped; thankfully he managed not to scream like a little girl. His pride might not have recovered.

There was a man sitting in one of the pews, half-hidden behind a column and the wooden partitions that separated the rows of benches. He was shirtless, fit; from the little Denzel could see in the dusky, muted light, he could have been anywhere between twenty and thirty-five year old. His dark hair was plastered to his neck, dripping wet, as if he'd just dunked his head in the pool. Perhaps he was a pilgrim, then, even though anyone who'd caught Geostigma in the epidemic three years ago should have been dead or cured by now.

"Sorry, sorry."

Denzel frowned in confusion. "What for?"

"Eh. You just look like you wanted to be alone."

The man didn't sound like he was about to go into a fake, cloying 'poor little sad boy, don't worry, you'll see that's not so bad later when you're old and wise like me' tirade, but neither did he look like he found Denzel's obvious depression mock-worthy. "It's nothing. A girl ditched me, 's all. I'll survive," the young teenager replied, feeling at once very mature and very miserable.

"Ouch," the man commiserated.

"Yeah, well. Whatever. You come here to pray?" As changes of subject went, this wasn't the smoothest Denzel had ever thought up, but he wasn't about to pour out his heart to a stranger. He'd already said too much.

The man chuckled again, rueful, and ran a hand through his wet hair. "Ah, no, not really. I'd offer to let you have the place, but... Listen, er, can you give me a hand?"

Denzel took three hurried steps back. "If you're thinking up pedo shit, I've got a switchblade and I know how to use it."

The guy blinked, and then burst out laughing, which reassured Denzel about as much as it irked him.

"It's not funny! Far as I know you're naked behind that bench."

The man's laughter, which had started to die down, redoubled and then some, with a note of sheepishness that hadn't been there before. "Well, actually...!"

"Oh, urgh!" Denzel took another step back. "Why the hell do you want to be sitting naked in this place? It's all full of dirt and dust and rubble!"

"Thank you, Captain Obvious. Somehow I'd failed to notice the pebbles in my ass."

"Did someone steal your clothes or something?" Denzel asked warily.

The question seemed to amuse the guy even more. "Well, they sure aren't where I left them."

Denzel huffed. What kind of idiot found being abandoned in a remote area while someone made off with his stuff _funny_?

"So... Here I am, naked as the day I was born," the man commented breezily as he propped his elbow on the wooden partition and waved his hand for emphasis. "And I wouldn't mind streaking all that much, but I'm afraid I'd be beaten to death by little old ladies with huge handbags for being an indecent pervert."

There weren't many of those around nowadays. Denzel vaguely remembered old ladies like that before the plate fell on the Slums and then Meteor fell on Midgar and everything turned into chaos, but the old ladies of today were more likely to pull out a sawed-off shotgun and kneecap you.

"I were you, I'd worry more about trying to cross the Sector without shoes. It's all full of glass and rusted stuff."

The man made a face. "Yeowch. Feet injuries suck, and I'm not too fond of tetanus either. So... Will you help me?"

Denzel gave an unconvinced moue. "Depends."

"Depends on what?" the man dutifully prompted him. He failed to look as curious or worried as Denzel had hoped; if any, his smile widened even more. Annoying!

"What I get out of it," Denzel bit out, crossing his arms stubbornly. "It's late, and it's gonna be later when I come home. If I'm gonna get killed by my guardian, I want it to be worth my time."

"Wh - you little brat."

Denzel straightened up, and gave the spluttering man a look that meant 'try me'.

The man tried him. "Do you want me to prove I'm not hiding a roll of gil in my butt crack?"

"Urk!"

"It's just a matter of bending over, after all..."

"Stay down, stay down!" Denzel protested, and covered his eyes hurriedly when the man grabbed the wooden partition and started to heft himself up on his feet. "Crap, man, that's - ew!"

There was a giggle overhead, light and girly and wholly unexpected. Denzel jumped and backed against the wall, a hand slipping in his pocket and curling around his knife. He looked up at the half of a ceiling and broken beams, but he couldn't see anyone through the gap.

"-Oh yeah, and my girlfriend's around too."

Denzel swallowed. "She. Uh. Is she..."

"Yup. Naked as a jaybird."

"And a little cold, too!" she sang back from somewhere upstairs.

The teenager desperately tried not to think about it. From the heat he could feel rising to his cheeks, he wasn't succeeding. He'd never been so thankful for the darkness inside the church.

"Didn't mean to surprise you, we just thought the next visitors might be a gang of street toughs or something like that and it might be a bad idea to tempt them. And that's exactly why you were supposed to stay quiet and pretend you weren't there, honey!" the guy drawled at the ceiling. "Maybe I'm going senile in my old age, but I seem to remember a discussion about that!"

"Sorry!" she called back, not sounding sorry at all. In fact she sounded even more entertained than the guy, and Denzel thought that they deserved each other. Annoying!

"One of your friends play a prank on you? You don't look stressed enough for a mugging."

"Hm? Ah - it's complicated." The man ran a hand through his hair again and grinned sheepishly. "Listen, I'll find clothes for her if it really bugs you, but would you mind getting me - I don't know, even just flip-flops and shorts? It's not the season, but they'll do in a pinch."

Denzel sighed heavily. "I guess I can do that much. But then you get to talk my guardian out of grounding me." Not that he really thought Tifa would ground him, especially not when she learned he had met people in need of help, but he'd never liked worrying her very much.

Oh well, in the end they were just a couple of random inoffensive loons. Denzel had met crazier.

"Sure, no problem, thank you. You're a lifesaver."

The man's smile turned more sincere with relief... And then went somewhat - cautious. Subdued.

"Anything of Cloud's would do. We should be about the same size. Unless he's had another growth spurt."


	2. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1**

"Tifa!"

The call cut across the almost-empty bar, prompting the couple of patrons in the far corner to look up from their card game. The barmaid put a glass to dry on the rack and turned to face the door, smiling. "Denzel, hey. I was getting a little worried..."

The expression on Denzel's face brought Tifa short. Earlier in the day, Marlene had used her patented 'I know a secret and it's making me depressed' sigh-slump until Tifa felt duty-bound to grill her. After hearing the girl's story, Tifa had assumed she knew what she would be dealing with... But there was no trace of the sullen misery Tifa would have expected Denzel to show after getting dumped. The teenager was tense, alert - worried, even.

"Is there a problem?" she asked, voice dropping, as she quickly moved to the end of the bar to meet him. Denzel's expression didn't lighten up any, and her fingers clenched on the counter.

He checked that the few regulars were out of earshot before he answered. "Maybe."

"What happened?"

"I met this guy by accident, and we chatted a bit, and he was alright, you know? Kinda annoying but - well, not violent or anything." Denzel's low voice dropped to a whisper. "And then he goes and drops Cloud's name out of the blue, like he knew I knew Cloud from the moment I stepped in. And I've never seen him in my life. And if you tell me Cloud shows off pictures of me and Marlene at rest stops-"

Tifa frowned. At first glance, that didn't sound like anything to fret over, but Denzel looked wigged enough, and being careful didn't cost much. "So - he knew that you knew Cloud? Maybe there's an innocent explanation... But you're right, that sounds a little suspicious," she added as Denzel made an offended noise. She picked up the phone and dialed the garage extension.

"A little! Did I mention he was buck naked?"

Tifa stopped in her tracks, eyes widening. "-He was what?"

_"... Tifa, mind explaining why you're calling me in the middle of a conversation about naked men?"_

She groaned and closed her eyes. "Sorry, Cloud. It's just, Denzel met someone and he might be ... suspicious."

_"The naked kind of suspicious?"_

Tifa's cheeks reddened at his dry comment. She could imagine the raised eyebrow accompanying it. "Cloud! Just - come to the bar, please. I don't know if it's anything urgent, but Denzel thinks it's weird and he usually has good instincts."

The boy puffed up with pride, and then, as he noticed his lapse, went on to gaze at the rest of the bar with haughty indifference. Ahh, teenagers. The dial tone prompted Tifa to put down the phone, and she picked up another just-washed glass to dry, to give her hands something to do. So far the couple of regulars in the far corner hadn't really paid any attention, beyond a few casual glances; she didn't want them to start now.

Cloud was there a minute later, solid and calm. He had grease smudged on his hands and cheek, and his grey t-shirt wasn't much cleaner.

"What is this about?" he asked, looking first at her, and then at Denzel.

Denzel's expression immediately went back to its serious, concerned look. "I was at the old church, you know..."

Cloud's expression tightened a little, bracing for impact.

"There was a guy there and his clothes and his girlfriend's clothes had disappeared, I'm not too sure how, and he asked if I could find him stuff to wear, and - well sure it's already weird and all, but..."

Denzel licked his lips nervously. Cloud watched him steadily, waiting, even though his shoulders were tensing up. Tifa put aside the towel to free her hands, seized by a prickle of foreboding.

"Could have been a joke, you know, hazing maybe, but then he said like 'Cloud's stuff would do, we're the same size', and the funny thing is, I never said anything about you."

Tifa and Denzel stared at the blond man together, waiting for a reaction. Even accounting for Cloud's usual faint reluctance to speak, it came a little too late to be casual.

"What did he look like?"

"Dunno, it was dark." Denzel frowned and stared at the floor, eyes unfocused. "Under forty for sure, probably less, not a fat guy at all. White or Wutainese - prolly white. Brown or black hair, I think, and kinda longish, but it was all wet and plastered to his neck so I can't really tell. Not a crew cut though. And I didn't see the girlfriend at all, but she didn't sound like she's a chain-smoking old hag."

Tifa tried to recall anyone she knew who was roughly Cloud's size and fit the description. There were Vincent, Reeve, Tseng, and Ferguson from the used parts shop, but Denzel knew them. There were a couple of Cloud's employers and her own suppliers, but they didn't know Denzel - Cloud always went to meet his employers instead of asking them to come, and the bar's suppliers usually dropped by when Denzel was either still in bed or already at school. No one amongst Cloud's acquaintances should have recognized her adopted son on sight. As for the bar regulars, if they hung around often enough to learn Cloud's name, then they hung around enough for Denzel to learn theirs.

Cloud's eyes dropped to the floor, pensive. "You're right. That's suspicious."

Denzel straightened up proudly at the acknowledgement.

"They're still waiting at the church?"

"Yeah. Unless they learn to fly, I don't see them crossing the old Sector Five anytime soon. Got no shoes."

Cloud nodded thoughtfully and turned away. "Tifa, can you get some clothes and shoes for the woman?"

She nodded quickly and stepped toward the door to follow Cloud. "Denzel, please mind the bar, I'll be right back."

Upstairs, Tifa quickly found clean sweatpants with a drawstring waistband and sandals. She hoped she'd get them back; out of the five pairs of footwear she owned, they were the only one that didn't qualify as being sensible - or in other words, ugly. She chose a large t-shirt at random, and added a shawl, just in case, and then went to find Cloud in his room. He was strapping a sword harness on his back, and her heart clenched.

"Do you need help?"

He shook his head without looking at her. "Can you pack the clothes on my bed with yours?"

She wrapped everything in the shawl without looking at her hands, watching him as he selected a sword from the rack on the wall and sheathed it. She took some comfort from the fact that it wasn't one of the Materia-covered ones. Every single one of Cloud's swords was razor-edged and battle-ready, though, so the comfort was minimal. "Do you really think this is another enemy?"

Cloud didn't answer for a few seconds, but eventually he turned to face her, eyes soft. "If it is, it can't be too bad of one. He let Denzel go."

"... Right. You're right," she replied, and tried to pretend that she was convinced. They'd had a few people coming after Cloud in the last three years - oh, none quite as powerful and scary as the trio of clones, but a couple had been bad enough.

"Mmh. As introductions go, it's awkward, but not all that threatening."

Tifa didn't say anything. Cloud sounded about as convinced as she did.

"At least Marlene is with Barret..." He paused, then looked up suddenly, jaw tightening.

Tifa shuddered. Barret had left with Marlene in the afternoon; he hadn't called in yet. Depending on how fast Barret drove, they might not be in Kalm yet, and they didn't touch base for every single trip anyway... "I'll call them."

Cloud stepped closer to pick up the clothes; Tifa reached for his sleeve and tugged gently, unable to look up.

"You... Be safe, okay?" she whispered.

Cloud inclined his head toward her, and rested a hand over hers briefly. "I'll be careful," he promised gravely.

And then he was leaving, with a sword across his back and a bundle of clothes under his arm, and she was alone in his bedroom with a hundred worries.

* * *

Paranoid. He really was paranoid. Getting ready for war just because one strange but apparently harmless man had mentioned that he knew Cloud...

(They were at the church.)

... True, he didn't have a great track record with strange people he had mysterious past connections with.

(Why were they at the church?)

Enemies didn't need to match his SOLDIER-level strength to be dangerous - Cloud wasn't stupid and he knew to watch his back, but he would need to be psychic to make sure he would never walk blindly into an ambush. No one could be on their guard every second of the day, not without going insane. Beside, as the latest assailant to date had proved, SOLDIER vulnerabilities weren't secret enough that no one could find out, with enough digging around. The possibilities were endless. There were disgruntled ex-Shinra troopers. Unemployed scientists. Fanatical Sephiroth-worshippers.

(Black-haired guy. Same size.)

...Gangs with designs on Edge, even - he'd humiliated quite a few, and they tended to have more pride and vindictiveness than common sense.

(But they wouldn't bring their naked girlfriend.)

(He'd jumped to stupid conclusions before, but this was a jump that could have cleared Bahamut.)

He stared up at the church's huge wooden doors, gave a cursory look at the rubble all around. His spine prickled, as if someone were watching him back. If there was, even his mako-enhanced eyesight couldn't pick them up.

The inside of the church was even darker, though the missing portion of the roof let in the faint glow of Edge's streetlamps, a dozen blocks away. Enough for him to know that there wasn't anyone sitting in the broken pews, or by the pool where the flowers had been, or anywhere on the ground floor.

He placed a hand on the hilt of his sword, slid a few inches of steel out of the scabbard. Planks creaked overhead, and Cloud moved lightly along the wall, avoiding the holes in the roof. He could hear someone moving along with him - the steps were light, controlled, even though no real effort was made to hide them. They would be arriving to the staircase at the same time he would, five steps, four, three...

And then there was a loud crack of breaking wood. A body jumped at him feet first, and he didn't stop to think; he just reacted. The sword was in his hand before he could reconsider, and swinging just as he realized, from the lack of follow-up, that this might not have been an attack after all.

Even sprawled awkwardly on the steps, the man managed to kick up into the flat of Cloud's blade, deviating its course. Cloud had been ready to still it at the man's throat, but the counterattack startled him. A gust of cold air blasted the staircase as the Materia on his armband flashed green.

The ice never materialized.

The green light gave Zack's skin a sickly tint, and carved strange shadows on his face, but the wild black spikes and the glowing purple-gray eyes were unmistakable. And the line of the jaw, and the high cheekbones, and the quirk of his eyebrows.

Cloud stared down at his dead best friend, and cursed himself for being unable to take the safest course of action - bring down the sword and end it before his memories were raped once again.

"Hey, blondie."

There was a chance, Cloud wanted to think. There was a chance. But he'd barely survived through enough precedents to know that there really wasn't.

"Mind not freezing my balls off? I'm kinda attached..."

He'd been expecting casual friendliness - that was Zack's default mode. He'd been expecting teasing. He'd been expecting smugness. They would have sounded true enough.

That quiet, almost gentle awkwardness felt truer.

"... Cloud?"

Slowly, Cloud lifted his sword, took a step back and then another. The man-who-might-be-Zack waited, wincing, and only sat up gingerly when Cloud had taken himself out of reach of a surprise kick.

"Well..."

Cloud waited, the tip of his sword brushing the floor as he held the hilt in a firm two-handed grip.

Zack - _the creature that looked like Zack_ - laughed dryly. "I must say, it went better than I feared."

"You assumed it would go worse?" Cloud asked, his voice wiped clean of all emotion. It was easier than dealing with the myriads of them trying to get through together.

"Eh, I had a couple scenarios. One of them had a dozen summons flattening the church from afar and Shinra ready to move in and pick up the pieces... It would have kind of sucked. I knew not to count too much on the tearful flying-tackle of love." Zack grinned. "You're a bit paranoid, you know."

Cloud stood still, watching the man who sat there on the old wooden steps, with his ankles crossed casually and his arms loosely draped on his lap, and the pained, rueful hints that colored the easy smile.

"... So, that spell..."

The Materia light winked off. The dark blinded Cloud; he closed his eyes, since he wouldn't be seeing anything anyway. He closed his eyes and told himself he was getting played. Zack was dead, dead and gone and that was it.

"You know," he commented quietly, eyes slitting open, "I could expect Sephiroth. I could expect more of his clones. I could even expect Aeris. Even discounting Jenova's help, their bodies at least went in the Lifestream. Yours went to _feed the worms_."

Zack's voice tightened briefly. "Yeah. It did."

Cloud had to pause at that. "...That's it? No convenient 'Hojo did it'?"

He might even have believed that, however suspiciously coincidental it sounded. It would have been likely enough, anyway - the creep always turned up in strange places, and he liked to recycle his playthings.

There was a short, frustrated sigh. "No. No convenient 'Hojo did it'. Went through the whole cycle of vultures, rats, worms, and assorted putrefaction and decay."

Cloud gritted his teeth. He didn't want to think about Zack's remains rotting on the ground because Cloud had left him behind and forgotten him there. And the flippant reluctance to answer was getting annoying. "So explain how you can come back from that," he said tightly.

"Did you ever meet Aron Bergsten?"

That hadn't come from Zack. The new voice from the top of the staircase was light, musical, undeniably feminine. Cloud's body went utterly rigid once again.

"He was in SOLDIER," the light voice continued. "First Class Captain, I think he was. He was one of the clones who reached the Northern Crater before you did."

Small, white feet first, and then frail ankles, and long white legs, pale skin glowing ghostlike in the dark - except that the planks creaked under her weight.

His Materia lit up again. And there she was, standing a few steps over Zack with her summer-green eyes and her warm smile, and her long unbound hair twisting into unruly coils, the ends tickling her thighs.

"...Aeris..."

"Hello, Cloud."

Another tidal wave of feelings rose in his throat, choked him - longing and loss and mourning and betrayal ... and hope. Surely Jenova could not touch her. Not her. She had never been infected with Jenova cells.

Had she? If he remembered right, she'd been in Hojo's lab as a toddler before her birth mother broke them both out - but that was too far back to count, surely it would have manifested long before, surely she would have flushed it all out. No, Sephiroth wouldn't have killed her if she had been under their control.

"This was Aron Bergsten's body," she continued softly, waving at Zack, who grimaced an unconvincing smile in answer. "His soul joined with the Lifestream, some time ago. And I didn't want to leave Zack behind. So... there you have it."

Cloud shook his head, more in bewilderment than denial. The body looked like Zack's, exactly like Zack's.

But Kadaj's body had looked like Sephiroth's, when Sephiroth possessed him, down to the width of his shoulders and the shape of his hands, and that was precedent enough.

... Surely, if you could make a body look like the spirit inhabiting it, there was a way to make it look like _anyone _- even look like Zack when it wasn't him at all possessing that corpse. But Aeris... He couldn't accept that someone had stolen her likeness. She was above that. Surely she would have known, she would have warned him. She would have done _something_... Right?

Even then he couldn't make himself believe it. He just couldn't. They hadn't given him any proof, and he was tired of the knife being twisted in the wound every time he thought he was finally healed.

"You're..."

She smiled, fingers of both hands laced over her stomach, just the barest hint of impishness behind the warm compassion. "I'm naked, yes."

"-That wasn't what I meant."

Zack chortled; Cloud glared briefly at him, disguising his relief at having a good reason to stop staring at her. Because of course, now that Aeris had pointed out how nude she was, he could see nothing else.

She wasn't making any effort to cover herself, her interlaced fingers highlighting the soft curve of her belly more than they masked any of it. He could see goosebumps in an interesting variety of places, a small patch of brown hair... If it was intended as a distraction, it was ridiculous. He wasn't that prudish, or that hormonal.

His gut was still twisting and twisting around with _'they're real'_ and _'they can't be'_ and all assorted feelings - loss and grief, astonishment and desperate denial. Because if he accepted it, and then it turned out to be a trap...

... If it was a trap...

He didn't know.

"You... Wouldn't go? I thought." Cloud frowned, steeled himself. Emotions could wait. She'd been gone a while. He'd mourned and - moved on. "I assumed you were dead."

"Well, yes."

"You could have come back from that anytime," he continued softly. The bile rising in his throat tasted like betrayal.

"Oh, Cloud -"

He took a step back when she stepped forward, and she halted. The light from his Materia wavered. Maintaining it at the very edge of a spell was getting difficult.

"... You could have come back any time. You didn't."

Zack growled, tensing as if he wanted to get up and get in his face. "Do you think she _liked_ being there?"

"Why not? It's her Promised Land."

He'd gone too far, he realized that a fraction of second before hurt flashed in Aeris's eyes.

"It was nice, being with my mother and all the other Cetras," she acknowledged quietly. "But it's nothing like this world. And actually, no, I couldn't have come back any time. When I died, I thought that was it, too."

She hadn't sacrificed herself thinking it meant nothing much. Cloud flinched, feeling bad for even contemplating it.

"There was no safe and easy way out of the Lifestream. There wasn't even any way deeper _in_; I couldn't even rest. I stayed awake because Jenova wasn't entirely gone, and then I stayed because someone had to guide the Planet when it healed itself. The other Cetras wouldn't, and they were the only other one who would have known how to."

"Why wouldn't they?" he asked when she fell silent. He tried not to sound apologetic; he failed, and then she smiled at him and he failed to regret his lapse.

And it was stupid of him to believe that she was real, that Zack was real. It was extremely stupid. But he couldn't keep lying to himself; he believed anyway.

"They're one with the Planet now. It's hard to still care about the details when you're part of an all-encompassing whole," she added with a smile and a little shrug.

Zack mock-shuddered. "Yeah, it was like 'What's the problem with killing a few hundred people ahead of their time? What's a few years anyway? They would die eventually. Sooner is better. Why _wouldn't _you want to come back to the Planet? And blahblahblah eternity of peace and unity' ... Urgh. It was creepy."

Cloud stared at Zack, and then back up at Aeris. "_Killing_?"

She moved down a few steps, arms wrapped around her middle, pensive and a little sad. "The Planet has different views on those things. It had to redistribute the Lifestream - sometimes that meant it had to take away the life force in some other places, causing droughts, or the crops to die, or even people wasting away for no reason... And is that a shirt I see?"

He leaned down and picked up the bundle of clothes he'd dropped when Zack fell, offered them without a word. The teasing lilt in her voice, the crooked, rueful smirk on Zack's face - they rang too true. If it was a lie, if it was a trap, it was too late; he'd swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

And then Aeris bypassed the clothes entirely and moved into his arms. He stood there like a statue as she hugged him, her arms around his neck, her chin tilted up to rest on his shoulder. From the staircase, Zack watched, serious and soft, tender.

Cloud did something stupid, once again. He closed his eyes, let his sword rest against the wall, and hugged her back.

He might have held on a little too tight; she didn't say anything.

The staircase creaked a bit, and then Zack's bare feet brushed against the floor. Cloud wasn't surprised to feel a hand on his shoulder. If they wanted to kill him, it would be now or never. He shuddered, once, when instead Zack flung his arms around them both and ruffled Cloud's hair teasingly.

"Mm, toasty warm."

"Idiot," Cloud managed to croak out. "You haven't grown up any."

It was just like Zack to break the mood. At least now Cloud wasn't crying. That would have been embarrassing.

The wetness Aeris kissed off his cheek was only - it must have been raining.

They stood together in silence for a while, and would have stood longer, but even with his body heat to share he could still feel Aeris shivering. He glanced down, and couldn't miss the way she burrowed in his arms, between his chest and Zack's side.

It would be pretty ridiculous if they came back from the afterlife just to die of the common cold. He loosened his hold, stepped back.

"Get dressed. I'll bring you home." He managed a smile. "Tifa will be..." Astonished. Awed. Deeply moved. "...Happy."

He still was; he couldn't get rid of the awe, the need to cry.

Aeris smiled widely. "I've missed her too. Is she well? Is everyone?"

Cloud nodded, and averted his eyes politely as she accepted the shirt from Zack's hands and pulled it over her head.

When he saw Zack shimmy into Tifa's sweatpants and Aeris wind the shawl around her hips like a sarong, though, he blinked. "There's another pair of pants right here, Zack. I'm pretty sure it would fit you better than Tifa's."

"Whatever do you mean? This is so much more fashionable." Zack grinned at him, tugging up the sweatpants to show off how much of his calves stuck out from the pants legs.

He didn't look Cloud in the eye.

"And besides, I doubt he'd fit into Tifa's pants half as well as I do." Zack grimaced awkwardly, though it had probably been intended as a smile. "Even if it would probably make his ass look fabulous."

Cloud dashed past them both, snatched up his sword and climbed the stairs four by four, with a Fire spell tingling down his hand, only awaiting a target.

The second floor of the old church had worsened since Cloud had lived there three years ago. The wood was swelled with humidity, and the repairs he'd made to the roof weren't holding up too well. Most of the blinds had been nailed shut to prevent the few intact windows from getting broken, though a few slats were missing, slashing the darkness with lines of faraway streetlamp lights. Loose bricks and mortar were strewn around the place, and a few abandoned beer bottles caught and reflected the green glow of his Materia.

None of them gleamed as green as the eyes of the ghostly-pale man standing against the wall, watching him.


	3. Chapter 2

The Masamune should have materialized and blocked Cloud's heavy downward swing; but instead Sephiroth fell into a crouch and dodged in a swirl of silvery hair. Cloud's broadsword hacked through three floor planks and half a support beam before he could stop the momentum. Stuck. Shit. He jumped up, shifting his weight onto his hands and the hilt of his sword. Sephiroth's long leg scythed where his knees should have been, and Cloud kicked off the wall and let his weight yank the sword free.

Stand-off. Cloud had landed in the middle of the floor. Sephiroth was moving slowly, standing straight, but spine and shoulders loose, hands lifted at waist height, ready to snap up into a number of potential barehanded fighting stance. It gave Cloud pause. All SOLDIERs were taught some hand-to-hand, but in actual combat Sephiroth had always used swords - the longer the better, as if the idea of actually _touching _those he cut down was distasteful.

Perhaps he just found the ceiling too low to swing the Masamune around properly. That gave Cloud the advantage in reach. Strategize too long, though, and he would lose that advantage. He threw himself forward, sword slashing the air.

Sephiroth was fast, though, and the floor was wide enough to let him move. He kept out of Cloud's range - they ran, sidestepped and chased from one wall to the next in a flurry of quick steps and quicker lunges and dodges.

Still no counterattack, no sword, no fire spell. No taunting. Cloud didn't like it. It was abnormal. He knew better than to stop pressing his advantage - if it was actually an advantage. He had a feeling Sephiroth was directing him somewhere...

- Directing himself. A glancing blow at Cloud's swinging blade redirected it into a wobbly pile of debris; Cloud jerked back to avoid flying glass, one second, no more, and then Sephiroth was leaping into the half-destroyed staircase well and bouncing up, from windowsill to support beam, toward the gaping hole in the roof.

Cloud gave chase.

"CLOUD!"

The feminine scream made him freeze in his tracks. He glanced up, sword up to block if Sephiroth decided to use his distraction - when had she gotten to the rafters ?

Aeris was clinging perilously to a broken railing, her bare toes at the very edge of the last plank before the void. The railing must have seemed support enough to lean over and look down at the fight, but it only held to the staircase by one rotten end; it had swung toward the void under her weight, and now there she was, arching over the gaping hole and completely off-balance. On tiptoes, she tried to shift her center of gravity back toward the support beam; the railing splintered.

"Zack!" Cloud hollered, still holding his defensive stance. Sephiroth had caught a ledge and pulled himself up to the hole in the roof. If Cloud didn't stop him now, he would escape, lose himself in the middle of an oblivious city; but someone needed to catch Aeris, and what the _hell_ was she doing up there anyway -"_Zack_!"

Zack was climbing the staircase six by six. He hit the second floor at a dead run - and another rotten plank snapped under his weight, making him stumble and fall to a knee, lose his momentum. One floor overhead, Aeris gasped as the railing she clung to gave a thoroughly underwhelming wet crunch and broke away from the support beam.

Cloud launched himself at the falling woman, amidst a rain of tiles that his kick had shaken loose. There was no way to slow down and catch her gently; he heard her expel a shocked breath as their bodies collided. Letting her fall would be worse; he grabbed her around the waist, and twisted in mid-air, so his feet would hit the opposite wall first. He kicked off again, ricocheting down to the closest floor. The second he was on stable ground again, he let her go, eyes snapping up to the hole in the roof, expecting to find it long since empty.

But Sephiroth was still standing up there, a black silhouette against the night sky, watching.

And Aeris was clinging to his neck with one arm, weighing down his sword hand with her whole body. Like cats and little children, she seemed to have mastered the art of making herself a lot heavier than she should have been.

"Aeris, you okay?" Zack called down, leaning over the edge of the second floor.

"I'm fine!" she called back, without looking at the black-haired man. She was staring at Cloud, he could see her from the corner of his eye.

Sephiroth wasn't moving, and she was staring hard, so he glanced at her, tried to make her understand how serious this was. "Aeris, let _go_ -"

She scowled, startling him into giving her another, longer look.

"I didn't bring him back to life just so you could kill him again, you know!"

"... What?"

She'd... what?

He hadn't even thought that far. Some days it seemed death was a revolving door for Sephiroth and his many clones. Did she really mean...? Suddenly Cloud wondered how accidental her fall had really been, what she'd even been _doing _up there in the rafters.

Aeris gave his forearm a soothing caress, eyes full of compassion, and maybe, far behind, a hint of exasperated - was that _amusement_?

"Jenova didn't bring him back to life. I did."

Cloud stared at her, uncomprehending.

"Cloud... Jenova is long-gone. She was burned out of him. She was burned out of everyone she tainted. It's okay, I promise."

"He's _Sephiroth_," Cloud replied, at a loss. He wasn't sure what her explanation implied, but at least he was sure of what his reply meant. This was Sephiroth; that was explanation enough. "Are you trying to tell me he's - what, _safe _to be around?" he scoffed.

"About as safe as you are when you wake up armed and without coffee!" Zack sang cheerily from overhead.

Cloud shook his head and snapped back. "Zack, I don't _drink_ - what are you _doing_?"

While Aeris and Cloud talked, the black-haired young man had climbed up to the rafters, casually straddled one, and was now in a deep, if one-sided, conversation with Sephiroth, who stood just overhead. Cloud just about had a heart attack.

"Zack!"

Zack glanced down at Cloud and made a shooing motion. "You make a sucky straight man, you know."

All Cloud could see was Aeris kneeling in prayer, smiling sweetly at him, while Sephiroth plummeted down toward her unprotected back. Zack, god - no. He tried to shake his arm free, but Aeris wouldn't let go; he would have had to hurt her.

"Okay, Seph, seriously, what do you say about getting down from there and putting something on to keep your danglies from dangling? I'm sure the hair doesn't keep you that warm."

The man's eyes narrowed faintly, but he didn't move, not even to look at Zack.

"Seph, come on, he'll be twitchy as long as you stay overhead."

"And I will be _'twitchy'_," the man bit out slowly and precisely, voice just as low and intense as Cloud remembered it, "as long as Strife is intent on hacking me to pieces."

Cloud stared, incredulous. How did Sephiroth - the man who'd razed a town to the ground in a fit of pyromaniac glee, tried to become a _god_, summoned a meteor to _destroy_ _the Planet he was standing on _- manage to imply that _Cloud _was the dangerously unreasonable one?

Zack huffed in frustration. "Oh, for God's sake. Cloud, will you holster the sword?"

Cloud growled out a "No" that really meant 'Are you fucking _serious_.'

"Cloud, please, he's not dangerous, would we bring him with us if he was?"

Sephiroth's lips took on a slightly pinched air, as if he dearly wished to object. He didn't say anything, though, and that was a little more convincing than Cloud was willing to be convinced.

Cloud took in a deep breath, released it slowly, and let his irritation come out in his voice. "What the _hell_ is going on?"

"Aeris just told you, blondie-"

"Zack, can it," Cloud asked quietly. "Explain."

Zack loved risks, but he wasn't suicidal; he didn't reply 'He's here because Aeris brought him back, duh.' Cloud would have hurt him. Zack just sighed, smile fading. "A lot happened in the Lifestream."

Cloud switched his sword to his other, Aeris-free hand, and pointedly propped it up against his free shoulder, waiting for more. Even SOLDIER eyesight had limits at this distance, but Sephiroth's face looked... tense, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed. Zack looked up at the man, as if to ask for permission, or perhaps apologize. The white-haired man stared at his lieutenant for a few seconds, and - Cloud was a little far to be sure, but he seemed to catch a reluctant 'fine, if you must' in his expression as he nodded. Obviously that was how Zack took it.

"Aeris was going around, trying to gather stuff and ghosts, kickstart healing - places, peoples - it was easier when people still present in the Lifestream gave a hand, you know? But there aren't a lot who are strong enough to keep themselves together for long. Natural order of things says you go from whole to not, not the other way around, just some people go more slowly."

Aeris started rubbing Cloud's arm gently once again, like she would have a skittish chocobo. Her eyes were unfocused, pensive, as if contemplating an inner landscape that wasn't particularly pretty. "He wasn't... whole, not really. Not with Jenova taking so much away, and doing her best at shredding the rest. But he was reweaving himself together anyway. I was... curious."

Only Aeris, Cloud thought. Only she would be so curious about the man who had killed her.

Cloud looked up again at the silver-haired man standing there. Now he looked sour, openly displeased. Aeris smiled and shook her head, as if amused at her own lack of surprise.

Zack took over. "Long story short, she got talking to him, he realized she wasn't gonna take no for an answer, I decided to follow, we had many a," his voice went dryly ironic, "violence-free, heart-warming little chat, and then - well, you gotta understand, we really thought we were dead for good, so the whole forgiveness deal didn't sound that bad." He paused, thoughtful, then shrugged again. "But then Aeris realized that hey, there was a tricky way she might be able to go back and probably take one or two people with her, and we decided we could nag him longer if we brought him along."

Zack grinned, not quite convincingly.

"And that's the Abridged Story of How Sephiroth Followed Us Home. Mom, can we keep him?"

Sephiroth gave Zack a glare that said he dearly wished to kick him off the rafters. If only; then Cloud could stomp him once he landed.

He closed his eyes, trying to make sense of the whole mess. Aeris and Zack were alive again. He'd never dreamed or expected it, but now that they were here, he didn't even have to think twice to know he would go through anything and anyone to keep them from going back. Sephiroth was alive again - no great surprise - but apparently he wasn't... evil anymore? _That _still refused to make sense.

"Get down here," he asked tiredly.

He looked up at Sephiroth, who watched him back without a word. After a few seconds, Sephiroth dropped to Zack's rafter and made his way down. He walked like a cat; all unhurried grace, perfect balance, and uncaring, inborn poise. Cloud couldn't help but tense slightly at his approach, and was glad when Aeris freed him on her own and stepped behind him, to the side. She wasn't hindering his movements and she stayed where he could shield her if need be, so Cloud didn't try to move, standing there with his sword over his shoulder. He watched his old nemesis advance on him, feeling like perhaps he was just having an exceptionally coherent hallucination after all.

"Sure you don't want pants?" Zack asked, teasing quietly; sound carried well in the church, and Cloud's ears were just as enhanced as the rest of his body, but he pretended not to hear anyway.

Cloud had to admit, the man was so at ease in his own skin, it was hard to remember he wasn't supposed to be going around nude. It wasn't obscene; it gave off a feeling closer to watching a classical statue that had gotten bored on its pedestal and decided to go on a walk.

Sephiroth looked at Cloud, a question almost, one he wasn't holding out much hope for. Cloud wanted to prove him wrong, suddenly.

"I'll wait."

He wasn't going to refuse him that dignity.

(Even if waiting until Sephiroth was tangled in his pants would be the safest way to take him down, and Cloud wasn't above playing dirty when he really had to. And this was a really bad time for any kind of amusement, even the grim, black humor sort.)

He waited, a block of tense muscles and raw nerves, as Zack trotted off to get the abandoned pants. The man who had haunted his nightmares crossed his arms casually and leaned against a pillar - over fifteen feet away from Cloud, true, but not battle-ready anymore. That made it hard to keep himself poised to attack.

Zack handed him the pants, and then went to Cloud and Aeris, quite deliberately stepping in between Cloud and Sephiroth to block his view. Cloud's jaw tightened with irritation and vivid mental pictures of seeing Zack suddenly skewered just like Aeris had been, and his fingers twitched with the need to grab him and pull him to safety, but he stopped himself. When Zack stepped to the side and around him to stand with Aeris, Sephiroth hadn't moved an inch.

Except now he wore pants. What a showoff. Bastard. Cloud's pants were a little tight on him. At least, he thought with wry, not-that-amused humor, the tight fit over the hips would prevent Sephiroth from dodging as fast and leaping as high.

So he watched Sephiroth and Sephiroth watched back, and it soon became apparent that neither of them would start talking first.

"We should do the voices."

Cloud twitched.

"Hey babe, how about you play Seph and I play Cloud?"

Aeris chuckled, eyes gleaming with mischief, and started toward the white-haired man, curling her fingers to invite him to move closer. Cloud's shoulders hurt from the effort he made not to reach for her and haul her back to safety. But Zack... He wouldn't let her put herself in danger, would he?

Would he?

Cloud didn't know. The way he talked, the way he acted - Zack was his General's man once again, like he'd never stopped. Cloud realized he was wondering if he really could trust him, and shoved the thought away. It was wrong. Zack wasn't so blindly loyal that he wouldn't do what needed to be done. He'd done it before.

"Enough - no need."

Aeris stopped, looked over her shoulder, and pouted slightly at being denied the game. "Aw, but we could speed it up a lot!"

"Aeris, _please_."

She looked a little guilty, but not really that much; neither did Zack. They just didn't _get_ it. They might have had months or years to get used to the idea, but Cloud hadn't! He flung his hand out, frustrated.

"What do you all expect me to think? How should I react? Should I erase the last ten years of my life? Even if you tell me everything that happened after Nibelheim was entirely due to Jenova and the clones-"

"It wasn't." Sephiroth's expression was cold, a little bored, as if he found the conversation tedious. His shoulders were tense. "What happened at Nibelheim wasn't, either."

Good, Cloud thought through a haze of anger. He would hate to have killed an innocent man. The reply was on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it back somehow, waited for more.

"That day, Jenova did nothing more than give me a nudge." Sephiroth's expression was ... strange, with an edge of disgust. "I was only too happy to open myself up to her."

Cloud had already taken a step forward when he realized... No, not disgust.

_Self_-disgust. The revelation kept Cloud frozen, kept him from letting the memory of his burned hometown seal Sephiroth's fate.

That didn't make any sense. Or too much, too conveniently so. Was he really implying that he hadn't been thinking, that he _regretted _it? How the hell was Cloud supposed to believe that? How the hell...

"Seph!" Zack protested. "You weren't in the best state of mind, and it was more than a nudge!"

The man shook his head, gave his subordinate a quick glare. "No. I might have been - _misguided_... But this doesn't mean I didn't _choose_ to do those things."

Zack's eyes softened, sad and compassionate. "Seph, Jenova-"

"I _wanted _to believe her," Sephiroth snapped, almost baring his teeth at him.

Cloud stared at his face and for a second he didn't recognize him. Where was the perfect, poised calm, the cruel amusement, the cold disdain? Sephiroth was _angry_. Not even at Zack, for pushing. At himself.

Because he'd deluded himself. Allowed Jenova to delude him. Because he'd been wrong, wrong, wrong, and he knew it, and he hated that.

The fact that Sephiroth now didn't like that he had embraced that genocidal space mutant and her goals... That... didn't absolve him much, actually. If it was true. But... It made his sudden about-face ring truer. It made Cloud feel - just a little bit - convinced.

It made Cloud feel like perhaps the sky wasn't blue and 'up' and 'down' weren't where he'd assumed them to be.

Cloud shook his head, reminded himself that for all he knew Sephiroth just regretted he hadn't chosen his targets on his own, without outside influence. Just because he hated that he'd allied himself with that crazy space mutant didn't mean he'd hated the rest.

He wasn't convinced of even this much, anyway.

"And you don't, anymore?"

"Believe that she is a goddess?" Sephiroth replied quietly. "No."

"And that she's your mother?"

A muscle in Sephiroth's jaw jumped, and his eyes went dull, flat. "That part was true enough."

Cloud hated it when he thought he understood the way Sephiroth's mind worked, because that was never true. He'd thought Sephiroth was honorable, once upon a time. He scrutinized him, waiting, but Sephiroth seemed to want the subject closed. Cloud didn't feel like humoring him. "Explain."

"It isn't relevant."

Zack stepped up and nudged Cloud's shoulder, wincing. "He doesn't mean it like that, Cloud. He knows she didn't carry him - couldn't have, I mean, she was _fossilized_. He doesn't mean it like, I dunno, she's his mom so he'll want to avenge her, or that he still shares her goals-"

Cloud frowned. Why wasn't _Sephiroth _saying that much? It wasn't from Zack's mouth he needed to hear that. "So you know for sure he isn't persuaded that humanity is on par with maggots anymore?"

Sephiroth's lip curved up in a humorless smirk. "It isn't?"

"You're not doing a great job of convincing me not to kill you again," Cloud remarked quietly.

They stared at each other. On the sidelines, Zack and Aeris grimaced at each other, probably trying to come up with a good plan to get in the middle. Cloud was looking for a way to make sure they would butt out, but Sephiroth dealt with it first. "Zack. Miss Gainsborough. If you will wait outside, please."

Even Zack didn't mistake the 'please' for anything but a formality. He threw them a worried look. "Guys..."

Neither of them answered, refusing to take their eyes off each other. Biting her lip, Aeris tugged on Zack's arm and, reluctantly, he followed her down the staircase to the ground floor.

Cloud would have expected Sephiroth to want them around; without them, there was no one to stop Cloud if he decided to attack again. He wondered if this was when Sephiroth's mind would crash into his own to try and take over, and he just didn't want witnesses.

But Cloud's mind stayed his own.

He waited; he didn't want to be the one to ask to be given answers, when Sephiroth was the one who owed him an explanation. And there was silence and more silence, as they stared each other down with matching, growing annoyance.

"It is unpleasant enough to be questioned at all," the silver-haired man eventually commented, his slow, uninterested voice distancing him even more from the topic.

Cloud didn't particularly care if Sephiroth found being interrogated on the subject of his homicidal urges distasteful, and he was out of patience with the waiting game. "Do you still hate humanity?" he snapped.

Sephiroth straightened up, regal, distant. "I... do not hold a sizeable portion of the human race in high esteem, no. But I no longer feel I should actively seek to remedy that."

That he still didn't think much of most people, but wouldn't try to kill them anymore was a lot more believable to Cloud than a sudden 'I'm so sorry, I love all living beings now'. But the weight of their shared history said it was still less likely than Sephiroth secretly brewing plans to climb back to the top of the food chain at some later date.

Cloud wasn't sure Sephiroth's ambition, his belief in his own superiority, had appeared out of nowhere. Hadn't there been hints before, even before they became Jenova-encouraged obsessions? Being made General so early, surrounded by so much publicity - when everyone fawned over him, how could he not believe in his inherent superiority?

After all, Cloud had believed it. He'd been a runt of a teenage hick, clumsy, badly socialized, too easily picked on; Sephiroth had been... More than human. Better. Even now, having fought him to a standstill three times, Cloud still felt like Sephiroth was _better_, still couldn't get rid of a strange aftertaste of awe. He shook his head, annoyed at himself. He didn't need to dwell on his teenage stupidity right now.

"Why did you come back?"

Sephiroth turned away, chin held high, gazing at the first floor of the church with indifference. Cloud's eyes narrowed.

"Dead men are rarely known for making amends, aren't they."

Cloud grunted, openly disbelieving. "You came back just to make amends."

The man snorted quietly, eyes glancing back and then sliding over Cloud, as if he were not worth stopping for. "It's a goal to strive for."

"It's not an answer."

The silver-haired man twitched in annoyance. "No, I did not choose to come back in order to make amends. I think Zack and miss Gainsborough are misguided, and rather too optimistic as to the greeting I might expect, even with all the time in the world to prepare all interested parties."

Well, he'd gotten that right. Cloud could imagine Tifa's, Barret's, Yuffie's reactions; they weren't going to be pretty.

"The world is going to be full of enemies. I doubt many of them will want your amends, even if you find a way. In fact they might hope very hard you go right back where you came from."

Sephiroth turned to face him fully then, green eyes blazing with sudden anger. "I want to _live_. Is that surprising? _I want to live_. And if I have to spend my life fighting, then so be it."

He took a deep breath then, the next concession forced out with reluctance.

"I don't intend to attack anyone who hasn't attacked me first. And if it's revenge they want - hn." He shook his head, a line between his brows. "I am not willing to die again. But I am willing to do my best not to kill them for it. Does that satisfy you?"

Cloud bristled. How generous. Asshole.

He stared at Sephiroth, taking him in, past his memories of the man, trying to see what was truly there. Gleaming cat eyes, bare chest, too-small pants and all - but the eyes gleamed less with smug superiority than with a feral sort of ... wariness? He held himself like he was prepared to move out of the way of Cloud's sword, fast.

Like he was planning on counterattacking only as long as he needed to open himself an escape route. The way he'd done once already.

It was almost as if Sephiroth didn't believe he could win... Cloud huffed quietly. The idea felt almost too ludicrous to contemplate.

"So you waited because... you want peace."

"I don't want war."

"For now."

"For the foreseeable future."

"You any good at tarot reading?" Cloud snapped. Sephiroth arched an eyebrow, as if he didn't get the reference. Cloud snorted. The foreseeable future, huh. Easy way to promise nothing. "Never mind. What stopped you from running off to live in the wilderness? Hours went by between you lot coming back and my arrival. Why were you even still here?"

Anger flashed briefly in green eyes, and was hidden away again. Cloud was almost vibrating with tension, aware of every single twitch his enemy made.

"It would come back to your ears eventually, wouldn't it? And then you and your group would track me down, and you wouldn't bother discussing a thing. You would be persuaded that I was planning something nefarious."

"There's precedent," Cloud said, irritated. Presumption of innocence was for men who hadn't tried to end the human race.

Sephiroth inclined his head, as if to concede the point. "Hence waiting for you."

Cloud considered that answer for a second. It was... logical enough. If Sephiroth was sincere. He couldn't figure out another reason for him to stay back and allow himself to be caught anyway - it didn't mean there wasn't one, though. Just that he was missing some key elements. But Sephiroth wasn't going to list them if Cloud requested it.

So he switched tracks. "Do you believe you're sane?" Cloud asked.

The man's jaw tensed briefly, but he relented, another flare of inward-turned disapproval flashing through his eyes, unsettling Cloud. He didn't want to see that. It was out of place. It didn't belong. (He didn't _want_ it to belong.)

"... I thought I was sane back then."

Cloud couldn't answer that for a second, and when he found his voice again it was a little quieter, a little - strange. "And now what do you think?"

Sephiroth quirked an eyebrow. "I fail to see why this matters. You won't trust my word either way."

"Damn straight I won't," Cloud snapped back, irritated all over again.

Alright, he wasn't going to get much more useable information from him here and now. Now he had to... make a decision... aw, fuck.

Cloud sighed quietly. He wanted to close his eyes and rub his temples so very badly. How had he ended up sole judge, jury and executioner on all things Sephiroth? Back then he had felt it his duty to take care of that crazy menace no one else seemed to grasp, but he didn't know what path to take with a sane, logical asshole of a Sephiroth. And one who acknowledged Cloud's place as judge and jury, however much that obviously rankled him.

Fact: Cloud had come very close to nailing Sephiroth a couple of times, and he hadn't called Masamune to him, or used any magic. Hypothesis: he _couldn't_.

Fact: Sephiroth couldn't be entirely sure that Aeris and Zack would manage to sway Cloud enough that he would even agree to listen, yet he had risked staying. Hypothesis... Hell, Cloud didn't have the first clue. His brain felt like it was trying to dribble out of his ears. Nothing made sense anymore.

"I can't make that decision alone," he finally said. "Not alone, not now." If he made the wrong one... "Aeris, Zack, you can stop hiding."

They peeked around the edge of the stairwell, Zack looking sheepish at being caught spying, Aeris not even bothering.

"So, er... What now?" Zack hazarded.

Cloud didn't know. He had no high-security prison that would contain Sephiroth at his disposal, no secret bunker. What to do? Bring him home? What about Tifa, Denzel? What would happen when Cloud would need sleep?

But there was nowhere else he could figure out.

"... I'm bringing you all back home." He turned to Sephiroth, before Zack could comment. "You won't be fighting anyone until that decision is made. _Anyone_. If you do, I'll kill you where you stand."

"What if someone attacks him?"

Cloud scowled, uncompromising. "He'll dodge. It's not fair, I don't care. Do you really want to talk about what would be fair to people trying to kill him?"

That they succeed. Zack winced, but looked like he wanted to keep arguing; Sephiroth himself lifted a hand in front of Zack to stop him, his eyes still on Cloud's face.

"Very well."

"I'll step in if anything happens before this mess is settled," Cloud granted grudgingly. "...You'll be under a Sleep spell until I've talked to the rest of Avalanche."

"Sleep spell? Isn't that a bit -"

Damn it, why was Zack - _Zack_ of all people - arguing like he thought Cloud was the bad guy? That was just - hell. Cloud knew that Zack and Sephiroth had been friends back in the day, and intellectually speaking he could even sort of see how they might have become close again in the Lifestream, but... Fuck. Just - _fuck_.

"What else can I do?" he snapped. "Let him roam wherever he pleases?" Cloud shook his head before Zack could plead in favor of his ex-General. "I wouldn't care if we were in the middle of nowhere, but not in Edge, with Tifa and the kids around. They'll feel threatened enough."

Aeris nodded slowly, biting her lip, and gave Sephiroth an apologetic look. "That's... I'm afraid it's the best solution. If you're asleep, they won't feel so scared they can think of nothing else," she added gently. "They'll be more likely to think things through rationally."

Sephiroth's upper lip curled up slightly. "That sounds lovely."

"Oh, Seph." Zack sighed, and watched Cloud and his stern, unyielding expression for a few seconds in silence before turning back to Sephiroth.

Sephiroth's somber look seemed tinted with worry - or maybe Cloud was just imagining things. His voice was quiet, obviously for Zack's ears only, but the rest of the church was even quieter. "Strife is - right. I have to prove my good faith first. But being so defenseless -"

"I won't let anyone get to you while you sleep."

"_Zack_."

Zack let out an explosive sigh and raked his hand through his hair. "Do you trust me to keep you safe? Because yeah, from the side that doesn't want you any more ventilated than you are it's kind of worrisome, but it's that or letting Cloud find you some Mythril-strength bondage gear and hogtie you in a corner."

"That won't be necessary," Sephiroth replied stiffly, and it was both a 'Keep your puerile jokes to yourself, if you please' and a 'Don't be ridiculous, of course I trust you', and it made Zack grin so wide, so happy, Cloud briefly ached, wanting to smile for him. Argh. He wasn't a kid anymore, mollified with just a single smile - and why was he even smiling at anything Sephiroth-related anyway. He hated that the man could put that expression on Zack's face. He hated that Sephiroth would even say he trusted Zack, like his trust was a gift to bestow, like Zack should be honored. Sephiroth had _betrayed _Zack.

Aeris chuckled and beamed up at them mock-innocently, pulling Cloud's attention away from the men. "Oh well. We'll keep that in mind for another time."

Zack choked on a burst of laughter. "_Aeris_," Cloud protested - that was so wrong, wrong, wrong - but she only grinned at him too.

Cloud allowed his resentment and annoyance to simmer down. He hadn't been able to stay angry at either of them even before they died - and now, even when he tried, he still couldn't totally smother the corner of his mind that still watched them with wonder.

Sephiroth's expression showed he had already dismissed that moment of friendly teasing from his mind. He watched Cloud. Cloud frowned back. "What is it?"

"Am I at least allowed to walk there on my own?" He smiled, faintly sarcastic. "It would be nice to enjoy the night at least once before I die again."

Cloud's eyelid twitched. Of all the people in the world, Sephiroth was the last who was allowed to guilt him into anything.

"If I kill you again, you'll be awake," he promised harshly, before he could think better.

He had misgivings for a moment; no doubt that a lot of his friends would disagree. It would be safer and easier to put him down in his sleep. But Cloud didn't like the idea of slaying a man unaware, defenseless. They would just have to move his sleeping body to the desert first; there were more than enough wild, uninhabited areas on the Planet for another final battle.

"... Sure, you can walk," he added grudgingly, shrugging off the tension. He glanced at Zack. "You'd whine if I made you carry him."

"Damn right I would. I'd whine you like you've never been whined before."

That, and Cloud didn't have any Seal materia on him anyway. Granted, a good knock on the back of the head might do the trick. One, or several.

He just wasn't sure how the hell he would take Tifa aside to prepare her without letting Sephiroth out of his sight. Send Zack inside to talk to her first, maybe? Tifa hadn't known him as long as she had known Aeris, the shock wouldn't be as violent... But then maybe she wouldn't believe Zack. It had been a while; she might not remember him well enough to even recognize him.

"Well, if we're done negotiating last requests here!" Aeris exclaimed brightly.

She tugged on Cloud's sleeve, made a shooing gesture at Sephiroth, and started herding them toward the exit, her unbound hair dancing on her shoulders. Snickering, Zack followed on their heels.

"Home! Let's go home now. I want to see Tifa."

Tifa's bar was brand new, Aeris had never lived there, but if he said that, he knew she'd reply something horribly corny like 'home is where the heart is.' She would mean every word of it, too. So Cloud went, allowing her to keep the arm he didn't hold his sword with so long as it kept his body between hers and Sephiroth, Zack taking the rear like he'd never stopped guarding his back. Sephiroth's silent presence was unnerving, but listening to his two lost friends as they marveled over the living world - even such a dirty, disused part of it as the Slums - kept it in the background.

He still didn't know why Zack and Aeris were willing to go to such lengths for the man who had slain her and betrayed him to his torture and death - and Cloud would ask them, yes, once he could talk freely - but...

Having them back was worth it, even if the price was to have to deal with the headache that was a supposedly sane Sephiroth. Having them back was worth just about everything.


	4. Chapter 3

All the way home, Cloud had been thinking about who should get to Tifa first - who should explain things to her, so she wouldn't hurt, wouldn't cry.

He should have thought, he acknowledged wryly, of what he'd do when she failed to stay at the bar and play sitting duck when she knew they had a potential enemy in town. Tifa liked to think the best of people - she thought the best of every single one of her customers, even the creepy drunks. But she still bartended with a shotgun under the sink.

And the narrow street was perfect for an ambush.

A crack of thunder erupted in the street, rattling the windows. Cloud had a barrier up to deflect the blast almost instantly. Not instantly enough; his body seized briefly, electricity crawling over his arms.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Sephiroth dodging to the side - but the lightning strike caught his leg, throwing him to the pavement and making his back arch with the shock. Zack had hit the ground in the other direction, tackling Aeris; Cloud cast a magic-repelling shield over the two of them first, and scanned the roofs wildly to find the assailant.

"Tifa!"

She didn't answer, except in the form of a second blast at Sephiroth. Cloud would have loved nothing more than to let it hit; but he'd given his word to protect the man as long as he couldn't protect himself, and he didn't want to test how long Sephiroth's promise not to counterattack would hold in the face of a determined enemy. He jumped in front of the silver-haired man, his sword up in an overhead block, still crackling with electricity.

"_Tifa_!"

There she was, behind that chimney, looking tense and determined in the fading lights of her spell. She was staring at Sephiroth. From where she was, she couldn't see Zack, and Cloud saw him straighten up and do a hand signal Cloud hadn't seen in years, but that he still remembered. 'Sneak behind enemy.'

"Zack, no," he snapped, hands still holding up the sword to attract any other lightning attack. Zack was a SOLDIER First Class with several years of combat experience, yes. He was also weaponless. Tifa was a hand-to-hand specialist who could punch holes through concrete, and she had Materia equipped on top of that. Zack would try to pin her nicely until they could reason her; she would try to get rid of him by any means necessary. Things would get nasty.

Well, nastier, Cloud amended as he threw up another shield to block a sudden gust of fire that blackened the road all around. Sephiroth had moved to stand in his shield radius - not even two steps behind him - and it made his skin crawl.

"Tifa, damn it, stop a minute!"

Once again, she didn't answer. Cloud sighed in frustration.

"I know it looks bad, but -"

"It looks like you got possessed again," she retorted tightly.

Cloud made a show of tilting his blade down toward the ground, away from her. "If I am, I can't tell," he replied honestly. Behind him, Sephiroth snorted, and he resisted the urge to throw him a warning glare.

"He's standing behind you!"

The urgency in her voice actually made Cloud flinch halfway around, expecting to see Sephiroth about to skewer him with the Masamune. The man was there, two steps behind, but his hands were still empty. Sephiroth crossed his arms over his bare chest as he gave Tifa a narrow-eyed weighing look. Cloud realized she'd probably hoped Sephiroth had messed with his mind so Cloud wouldn't notice him.

"...I know. Tifa..."

Cloud fell silent, not knowing what to do. How was he ever going to get her off this roof? Sephiroth had murdered her father, for god's sake, and destroyed their hometown and messed with Cloud's mind until he would have killed all his friends and not even _noticed_. How was he to get her to trust his word, when the man was standing there, clearly under Cloud's protection?

And then Aeris stepped away from the wall and looked up at the roof overhead.

"Hello, Tifa."

Tifa froze; even from the middle of the street, Cloud saw her face pale and her eyes widen painfully. For the longest time, there was silence; out of sight, Zack sighed and mouthed a 'thank you' to the skies.

"... Aeris...?"

Neck craned to look up, Aeris gave her a rueful smile. "Yes. Ah... It's a long story. Would you be willing to listen to it? I suppose you won't come down, but I could climb up -"

"Aeris - if you're _really_ Aeris," Tifa corrected herself, with a voice that barely trembled. "If you're really Aeris, you will go to the bar at the end of the street, and call the first three numbers on the emergency contact list. And then you will hide. I'll stop them."

"Tifa, please-"

"I'll stop them!" she repeated stubbornly, her furious eyes still fixed on Sephiroth's face. Cloud thought they might have been a little too bright, glistening a little too much. "I'll stop them, I won't let him kill you again. I promise, I promise I'll save you this time so _just go and hide already_!"

... Oh. Oh, Tifa.

Tifa's chest heaved as she took in a deep, shuddering breath; her clenched fists didn't tremble. She moved to the edge of the roof, spared a quick glance for Zack; she clearly hadn't forgotten his presence, but her main target was still Sephiroth, and Cloud by association. Cloud was kind of proud, in a 'how the hell am I going to keep this from degenerating' way.

And then one of the thick metal blinds on the house she was facing was thrown open so hard it bounced, and Cloud and Sephiroth were getting targeted by a shotgun held by an aged, squinting neighbor.

"What the devil is going on! Bandits again?"

Cloud swore, and whirled to place himself and his sword between Sephiroth and the bullets headed their way.

"We done told you we weren't gonna let you get our town!" the old man yelled furiously, shooting again. "You go and fry 'em good, Lockhart!"

All around them, drawing courage from the old man's stance - and from not being the first to peer out - a few more windows opened, more voices wondering what was happening in the street in the middle of the night. Damn it, damn it. Cloud knew for a fact that no Edge home was complete without a weapon rack or two.

"Mister Zeller!" he called, blocking another bullet with the flat of his sword. "It's Strife - HEY!" A strong hand caught his upper arm and jerked him aside as someone else shot a handgun at them; the bullet whizzed past his temple. He shook himself free and glared at Sephiroth, who wasn't even looking at him. The man had his side to Cloud, in a low, ready crouch, with his long hair trailing all over the place, tinted yellow by the lampposts.

Strange clothes and awkward light aside, Cloud was pretty sure there would be some people who'd recognize the subject of so many a motivational poster, back around the time of the Wutai war. No more time to dither.

He didn't know who, he or Sephiroth, first noticed the old truck parked on the sidewalk some twenty feet away; but they dashed toward it in unison, Cloud swinging his sword over their heads to shield them both. They ducked behind the truck, in time to feel it shudder under a bullet impact. A woman screamed overhead. "My truck! That's it, Zeller, this is war!"

There were more insults, more demands to know what the hell was going on. A dog started howling.

"Get back inside your houses," Tifa yelled urgently, but no one was listening.

Cloud made himself as small as possible behind the truck, scanning the woman's house suspiciously. From the angle of the windows, it wasn't totally impossible they'd be shot from above, but it would be difficult.

"Well," Sephiroth commented with biting sarcasm. "This is entertaining."

Cloud threw him an irritated glare. "It's going to be even funnier if they recognize you. Do something with your hair."

Sephiroth arched an eyebrow, but after a few seconds of consideration, tied the mass into a knot at the base of his neck. Cloud didn't even want to know how he managed to keep it looking smooth and well-combed when they were in the middle of a shooting. Though the old man had stopped peppering them, but he was probably just reloading, Cloud thought tiredly.

"May I come out now?" he called; he got a startled shriek and some woman throwing a - thankfully rather weak - Ice spell toward his head. Sighing, he dodged behind the truck again, giving his frosted hair spikes an exhausted look.

"He's your neighbor, you blind old bats!" From behind a dumpster, Zack shook his fist at the people at their windows. "He's Cloud Strife, damn it, do you know anyone else who lugs around huge swords like that?"

Apart from Zack himself? Behind Cloud, Sephiroth snorted quietly, and Cloud felt a second of unease, wondering if they'd had the same thought.

"... Mister Strife? 'zat you?"

"Yes," he called back, and waved from behind the truck's hood. "I'm sorry for the scare; there was a misunderstanding."

Tense, he waited for Tifa's scream of denial; nothing came. He pulled himself up and stepped out slowly, looking at his neighbors in turn.

"Sorry for the disturbance. Come by the bar tomorrow and have one on the house."

Aeris took Zack by the wrist and joined him in the middle of the street, and Sephiroth slowly followed, giving the people at the windows long measuring looks. Cloud didn't like it much, a part of him wondering if Sephiroth was memorizing their faces for his next killing spree, but it wasn't like he could order him to keep his eyes on the ground; that would look too suspicious. Cloud nodded politely at the onlookers, wished them goodnight, and started toward the bar before they could ask for details, swinging his sword in place on his back.

The whole time he kept expecting another lightning strike, but when they reached the bar there was still no sign of Tifa. There hadn't been any since she'd tried to yell the watchers back in their homes. The bar was closed and empty, and when he peered inside he couldn't even see Denzel waiting up. But then if Tifa had enough foresight to wait for them away from where they thought she was going to be, Cloud was pretty sure she would have enough foresight to send Denzel to sleep over at some friend's where the boy couldn't be found.

He left the rest of the floor in darkness, only turned on one light over the bar; Tifa would see them through the large windows, if she was still out there. "Seventh Heaven the third," he commented to Zack, who was looking around with interest.

"Nice place. All yours?"

"No, it's Tifa's. I just help out from time to time."

He gave Sephiroth a wary look, but the man seemed content to lean against a pillar and watch his surroundings, arms crossed over his bare chest.

Aeris sighed, and laughed a little, though she didn't seem very amused. "That was unexpected. Poor Tifa, she must have been so shocked."

Cloud remembered the raw intensity, the grim determination in Tifa's promise that she wouldn't let Aeris die again, and didn't feel all that amused either. He had never realized that Tifa felt personally responsible for that, felt she had failed Aeris just as much as he did. When she learned that Aeris had brought her murderer back to life...

Zack gave Cloud a hopeful look. "Say, do you think she'd mind if..."

"Help yourself," Cloud replied, gingerly perching on one of the stools and turning so he would be able to keep an eye both on the dimly lit room and on the window to the street.

Zack ducked behind the bar and started rooting around. He gave a little "aha!" of triumph when he found the beer cans, and popped up over the counter. "Aeris, you want anything? Cloud? Seph?"

"Just water, please," Aeris replied. Sephiroth just shook his head imperceptibly.

"I'm fine," Cloud said, propping up his sword against the counter. It was too hard to still believe that Sephiroth would attack right now. He'd had access to Cloud's unguarded back too many times during the fight.

Cloud kept the sword in easy reach regardless.

It was only five minutes before Tifa pushed the door open and walked in, but they were the five longest minutes in recent history. She stood there, outside of the puddle of light by the bar, not moving any closer.

"Tifa..." Cloud and Aeris spoke almost in synch, by accident. Tifa glanced back and forth at them both, and her red-brown eyes skimmed over Zack; but once they met Sephiroth's green, they didn't move again.

* * *

It seemed surreal to her - Sephiroth standing in her bar, propped up against one of the wooden pillars, with his imposing frame and his cold, aristocratic face, and his unnatural hair. Not unreal, though - unreal would have been a vision from the past, complete with the black leather outfit and the sword, and his hair floating freely behind him like a banner to his arrogance. Instead there were a mane tied in a rough and rather strange-looking knot, and Cloud's slightly-too-small pants, ending mid-calf, and bare, dusty - and bleeding? - feet, lit by the cheap yellow glow of the lone light bulb. Surreal, definitely - because it was way too much reality for one scene.

And he was still watching her, and his eyes still glowed Mako-green around those inhuman pupils. Off to the left, Cloud sat slumped on a barstool, looking weary and watchful.

Not mindlessly adoring, though. Not vacant-eyed.

"Does anyone mind telling me what is going on?" she asked, remarkably calmly.

It was the black-haired man who started first, circling the end of the bar to take a few steps toward her. He didn't come any closer than the first table, though; that was good, because Tifa would have hated to break it on his head to keep him at bay.

"Evening, miss Lockhart. It's been a while. Do you recognize me?"

Well-defined cheekbones, long locks of hair that gathered in spiky clumps, body that tended just a little bit toward lean - hips from which her own sweatpants were threatening to fall off... She did at that. She had only known him a couple of weeks, ten years ago, but the swagger was - she'd been thinking 'inimitable', but Cloud had done such a good job mimicking it that this was how it clicked in her mind. She still remembered it as 'how Cloud used to walk, when he was still pretending to be Zack.'

Cloud didn't have black hair, and she wasn't sure where he would have found a wig in the old slums, but that would have been doable. Unlikely, but doable.

The purple glow of his eyes, not so much.

Tifa stared at them all in turn and then back at the black-haired man, still trying to figure out why they were there and what kind of catastrophe was falling on their heads _now_. The way he grinned - it seemed real enough. But only the bad guys ever seemed to come back from the Lifestream for a visit... Case in point.

"Zack, isn't it?"

"Ayup. Zack Fair, at your service."

"You were the one who met Denzel in the church?" she confirmed.

"Yep. Smart kid, that one. Got character too."

Tifa desperately tried not to think too hard that all the time Denzel had spent chatting in the church with Zack, Sephiroth had been lurking around, probably listening in.

"Thank you. Now would you _please_-" Her voice went a bit strangled, and she fell silent to breathe in, and out, like Zangan had taught her all those years ago. She was calm. She was very calm. She was going to stay calm until it was time to fight again - she would just be _ready_.

"Yeah... I'd tell you it's a long story, but in layman's terms it isn't. So. Condensed version, er. Aeris was done working on the Lifestream - it can run itself now - so we decided to come back." Zack grinned, hopeful and somewhat sheepish - a lot like Denzel when he hoped she wouldn't notice he'd only done the first page of his homework or eaten only the meat and then artistically spread the vegetables on his plate to make it look like some were missing. Maybe a smidgen more nervous, but then again, not a lot.

"... Ah."

"That's the really, really condensed version, though. For one thing, it was a lot more complicated than just making the decision. It was more like, 'okay, we're done with Jenova and everything, I guess it's time to fade away - oh, look, a loophole.' And, er, about Sephiroth - well, he's kind of a prickly bastard, but he's not insane anymore, so...?"

Tifa stopped staring at Sephiroth, whose eyebrows had vaguely twitched downward at the announcement, and stared at Zack instead. What was she supposed to answer? 'Oh, that's nice' perhaps?

This time it was Aeris who moved to meet her, and she didn't stop at the edge of the light.

Lost in Tifa's largest t-shirt, hair unbound so that wavy locks cascaded all over the place, shawl wound around her hips like a fancy skirt - unmistakable. It didn't feel surreal or unreal anymore, it just felt true, and suddenly Tifa couldn't breathe, because if she did Aeris might fray and disappear.

"Tifa -"

Tenderness and compassion on her face, in her eyes - a hint of a wince, shared pain, a rueful little smile...

They reached out at the same time, hands gripping each other.

Aeris's hand was warm, but what convinced even Tifa's rational mind was that she had dust on her cheek, tangles in her hair, and a shiny piece of chewing-gum wrapper caught in the fringe of her shawl. Tifa was startled when she heard herself laugh. She choked on something; she didn't know if it was a giggle or a sob. Proof by chewing-gum wrapper. How was that for a miracle?

Oh, how she wanted to cling and ask a million things, but the cold, inhuman eyes behind them - she couldn't help it, she shifted Aeris bodily aside, edged forward so she could shield her in case anything happened. Cloud's face tightened in pain, and Zack ruffled his own hair with tired embarrassment. She waited for Sephiroth to do something - give her a disdainful look, a smirk, a sneer maybe; he didn't. He didn't taunt her, he didn't pretend to be polite, he didn't say anything. She told herself it was good. She didn't know if the sound of his voice might perhaps be the thing to snap her calm. He just watched her right back, and that was it.

At her side, Aeris sighed quietly and squeezed her hand, even as she looked straight at the man with a strange sort of quiet seriousness - strange because there was no wariness in it at all.

"Sephiroth... It might be time you slept. Cloud?"

Sephiroth looked at the blond, expressionless. Cloud frowned faintly and then nodded. "It's getting late."

Tifa frowned, confused and still on edge. "Cloud?"

"He's going to be under a Sleep spell until the rest of the gang gets there and we all decide what to do," Cloud replied calmly, with a touch of gentleness in his voice like he knew exactly what she feared; she felt a little reassured.

"Ah. Alright."

"Mmh. Far from me to delay your bedtime," Sephiroth commented silkily.

The sound of his low voice made her shudder; she had been starting to think he would not speak at all. Cloud glared at him, hostility flashing through his weariness; Tifa was reassured. The world wasn't completely crazy yet.

"For someone asking for favors, you're bad at staying on my good side," he snapped.

Sephiroth's eyes narrowed, and Tifa tensed, but then he let out a tiny sigh and nodded as if conceding a minor, technical point. "I... do lack the habit."

"Yeah well, if you're smart," Cloud replied without breaking eye contact with Sephiroth, "you'll learn faster."

Sephiroth's eyes went even more narrow, but after a second he breathed out slowly and his expression smoothened, emptied out. "My apologies."

Cloud was still scowling, but in the end he just shrugged it off with a quick, irritated twitch of his shoulders. He slipped off the stool, swung his sword back in its sheath. "Staircase in the backroom. Second floor. There's a mattress in the attic."

"An attic." Sephiroth was watching him with those narrowed, coldly predatory eyes again in which she could read absolutely nothing.

"It locks from the outside," Cloud said, a confirmation to a question that hadn't be asked, and lifted a hand to cut off an answer Tifa hadn't been aware would be coming. "It's not to keep you in. It's to keep people out. There are children living here."

Tifa wondered briefly whether she was crazy or whether this explanation could have been construed as a - weak, insincere, irritated - form of apology. Surely she was reading too much into it.

Sephiroth relaxed slowly nonetheless. "I did offer my cooperation, Strife."

They just stared wordlessly at each other, and Tifa barely dared look away; she glanced at Aeris, and at Zack too, to see if they had any idea what was going on in their loud silences. Aeris looked sad; Zack looked worried. Neither of them offered any explanation.

"Well! Let's see it," Aeris commented with false cheer as she tugged Tifa toward the backroom, urging everyone to start moving. "Say, Cloud, do you have a Seal Materia? I'll cast."

"Several. Tifa? You know where they are; would you mind?"

Tifa hesitated - she didn't want to leave Cloud and Aeris alone with Sephiroth, and she still didn't know if she wanted to really rely on Zack to cover them. But someone needed to get the Materia, and the other two didn't know where Cloud kept them.

Tifa hurried up the stairs and walked fast into Cloud's bedroom, going straight for the drawer. Her hand closed on several Seal orbs; she released them all until she found the strongest, and then she held it against her chest and went to join them upstairs. She paused and got fresh sheets for the mattress on her way, though. She berated herself all along, but she got fresh sheets, and even a blanket. She would have cheerfully - well, not cheerfully, but determinedly - broken the man's neck, but making him sleep in the dust just seemed too petty.

Zack was outside the attic door, with his back to the wall, as if standing guard; he smiled at her, friendly as always but with a distracted, worried edge that took away from the reassurance.

There were stacked chairs and high stools in there that she ought to repair for the bar, a crate of books and one of mismatched shot glasses, a voluminous wooden wardrobe, Marlene's old toys, and a chest of drawers Tifa kept with the vague thought that Denzel would need it when he moved out. She briefly wondered about how fast the clutter had piled up, about how amazing it was that she could afford to keep said clutter now, instead of paring down to the necessities of the road, or fearing that one day everything she owned would burn, be gone without a trace.

The man who had burned down her hometown, and sent her to the slums, and then on the road, stood there amongst her amassed belongings, looking down at the bare mattress. Cloud watched him without a word; but there was a tension between them Tifa could feel from the other end of the room, even though she could only see Sephiroth's back and had no clue what his expression was like.

"Ah, Tifa - thank you, I didn't think of that."

Aeris stood in front of the skylight in the sloped roof, breathing in the cool night air. She moved to meet Tifa at the door, and held out her arms for the sheets and blanket; Tifa let her have them, and the Materia with it. She didn't want to come any closer if she didn't have to.

Sephiroth watched the green-eyed girl with a lack of expression that made Tifa shudder. She told herself that if he struck again, Cloud was close enough, ready to stop him.

"Look, you even have a blanket, isn't that nice?" Aeris chuckled, kneeling on the floor to make the bed. "Now move over, I need a little space."

Tifa's fingers whitened on the doorjamb. She didn't understand how it was that Aeris wasn't afraid, that she could turn her back onto the man who had murdered her so easily, shoo him with such a cheerful air.

"Hey..." Zack whispered, and his hand touched her shoulder lightly; Tifa jerked and glanced at him, though she couldn't take her eyes away from the scene too long. "It's going to be fine. He'll lie down, she'll get him asleep -"

"He doesn't want to." Even she could see it, and she didn't even know the man.

"He'll do it anyway. He doesn't like it, but he'll do it anyway - see?"

For a tense handful of seconds, Sephiroth stood like a statue, tension gathering in his limbs - Tifa could read it, that coiled-spring feeling which so often ended in violence. But just as she was about to step inside, the man closed his eyes, sighed, and sank down gracefully. Then he was out of sight, hidden by the chest of drawers. Cloud still stood, watching without a word as Aeris knelt and cast her spell, but the matching tension in his body had seeped out, leaving him looking weary, jaded.

"You okay?"

Tifa pulled her eyes away from the lights dancing on the wall and looked at Zack.

"... I'm fine. Just - this is..." She shook her head, bit her lip. "I don't get what's going on. Don't get - you came back. That's good, but _he_ came back - and _why_?"

Zack sighed, rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, the condensed version's not gonna cut it. "

Aeris muttered something vaguely miffed from her corner, pulling Tifa's attention back. Sephiroth's comeback rang like a vocal eye-roll. "Perhaps you would have more luck if you clubbed me instead."

"Ooh, you're trying to tempt me, aren't you."

There was no verbal reply, but Cloud snorted.

"You keep that eyebrow down, mister, or I'll do much worse than club you. I'll _tuck you in_."

Aeris cast again before Sephiroth could answer, which was good because Tifa didn't know how long she could take listening to the light, friendly banter between them.

This time there was no answer; Aeris cast a third time, to be sure it took, and then accepted Cloud's offered hand and let him pull her back up on her feet. Cloud cast a barrier around the bed; they weren't all that resilient from the inside, but Tifa knew he would notice it breaking. She watched them navigate the attic, feeling like she'd end up sitting rather hard if she let go of the doorjamb.

"Tifa?" Cloud asked, frowning. "Are you okay?"

"Ah - yes, yes. It's just a little..." she said, doing her best to smile at him. It had to be even worse for Cloud; he'd suffered so much more personally at Sephiroth's hands. "You know - in a way it would be easier if we just had to fight."

Cloud looked at her and nodded like he knew what she meant. "Mmh. Uncertainty gets old."

Zack sighed, and Cloud gave him a narrow-eyed look, but the black-haired man didn't explain it.

"I have to tell Denzel," Tifa muttered. "I bet he's still up waiting..."

Cloud handed her his PHS without a word; Tifa typed out the number quickly. The message itself, she hesitated over. She wanted to tell him everything was all right, but then he would want to come home. He was safe where he was, and mature enough not to need her to pretend everything was dandy.

Actually, he probably wouldn't believe her if she told him everything _was_. In the end she went with _'no injurd., situatn. stable fr now, talkn. will call u back tmrw. go to bed!'_ He would understand he needed to wait.

Zack waited until she had hit Send and handed the PHS back to Cloud to speak again. "I guess it's time for the long explanation. Let's go back downstairs and we can talk as much as you guys need."

Tifa bit her lip. "I'd rather we used one of the bedrooms. The bar is too far down to hear anything..."

"In case he wakes up? Resilient or not, he won't wake up for a while," Aeris assured her gently. "A normal person wouldn't come out of it on their own for at least a week, and I don't think anything could wake him up that wouldn't get our attention also."

Cloud shrugged. "Bedroom's more comfortable."

Zack sighed again, probably because Cloud's reply sounded a lot like an excuse, but in the end he shook his head ruefully and chuckled. "Bedroom it is."

When they walked down the stairs, Cloud took Tifa's hand and gave it a quick squeeze, and she felt a little better.

There was more space in Tifa's bedroom - not a lot, but still more than what Cloud's weapons racks left in his own, so that was where she led them. Cloud propped his sword against the wall and sat at the head of her bed, leaning a shoulder against the headboard and crossing his arms loosely over his chest. Unable to settle down, Tifa kept standing, watching as Aeris curled up in her armchair and Zack straddled a stool.

"Where to start..." Zack mused.

"How about you tell us why he's with you first." Cloud's body language was relaxed enough, but his tired eyes weren't.

Zack pressed a hand to his heart and winced, not entirely playfully. "Ouch. That hurts, man. That's your first question?"

Cloud's expression only grew more weary. "It's not that I'm not glad to see you, Zack. But you've been dead six years. Between seeing you again and having him back in the genocide business, it's not even a choice."

Zack flinched and his smile melted into a more subdued expression that Tifa couldn't read.

"You're lucky he's not gonna be killing people then."

Cloud sucked in an irritated, hissing breath. "But how can you _tell_? He could be playing a game for all we know. If he needed Aeris to bring him back to life..."

"He did agree to be put under, right?" Aeris countered, voice soft. "He stayed, he allowed us to make him sleep. Do you really think he would let anyone make him so vulnerable if he wasn't sincere?"

Tifa bit her lip. That was a good argument. She really didn't want to admit it, but it was. It seemed too tortuous and ... _low _for the proud, arrogant man she remembered.

Sephiroth - granted, she hadn't known him much, only that trip in the mountains and then his madness, and the details of the past that Cloud let slip sometimes - but she thought, even when he was sane, that he would be more likely to tell them what he wanted, and if they said no, he'd skewer them and go get it himself. He wouldn't bother trying such a complicated, risky scheme when kidnapping and torturing them might work faster, more efficiently, and without having him lose control of the situation.

"Maybe he was counting on us thinking that," Cloud replied, looking away from Zack.

Zack snorted and made an unconvinced grimace. "Seph? Counting on people to have common human decency? That'd be the day."

"He's been in my head enough to guess what I would do by now."

Zack gave him a disappointed look. "You don't even believe that, Cloud. You're just looking for excuses to disagree."

Cloud glared at the man, eyes flashing with irritation. "What do you _know_ about what I believe?"

Zack's teeth ground together and he jumped to his feet, startling Tifa. "I believe I can't fucking stand it when you lie to my face! What's your problem? Since when am I the enemy?"

Tifa knew what she expected Cloud to answer, what she would have answered - 'you were the enemy from the moment you sided with the enemy.' It wasn't what came out of Cloud's mouth.

"_What the hell makes him worth it?_"

It wasn't a rejection, line in the sand, you're with us or against us. It was 'Did you abandon me? It hurts.' It took the wind out of Zack's sails; he slumped back on his stool, eyes full of sorrow.

"Cloud..."

Cloud had risen too; he crossed his arms and sat back down, looked away. There wasn't a lot to look at, apart from the wall and the corner of Tifa's big armchair, where Aeris coiled. Tifa bit her lip and sneaked a pleading look at her - surely she would find the words to end this argument. But Aeris glanced back at her and then, meaningfully, at Zack, who seemed to be ruminating something.

"Oh hell," the man groaned. "I think after we came back from the dead it's not unmanly at all to have a goddamn group hug." And with that, Zack slipped off his stool, marched to the bed, and threw himself at Cloud's side with such determination the wooden frame groaned.

Tifa winced a little as Cloud startled under the rough, one-armed hug he was subjected to; watching them, she missed Aeris getting up until the woman caught her hand and tugged. "Come on! Let's join them."

"Aeris-" Tifa tried to protest, to no avail.

"Come on," Zack repeated, "Your presence is the only thing that stands between a heartwarming group hug and two dudes man-touching on a bed."

Cloud rolled his eyes. "Right. Your arm on my shoulders, it's practically gay porn."

Aeris gave a dreamy sigh. "If only."

"H-hey!"

Ignoring Cloud's reaction, she sat at Zack's side and poked him in the ribs, making him squeak. "Move over, mister Hotshot." Cloud tried to move to the head of the bed, but she reached for his sleeve around Zack's back and held him back. "No, not you. I want my hug too."

Cloud glowered a little, but was just embarrassed enough that by the time he opened his mouth to protest, Zack had already switched to his other side and was worming his way between his flank and the headboard. Aeris sat down where Zack had been, leaned her head on Cloud's shoulder.

Tifa felt the curious urge to excuse herself. The three of them - Zack and his strong hands and regretful eyes, Aeris with her soft, contented little smile, both of them leaning on Cloud who sat stiff and straight, eyes closed, pained. Cloud's best, most steadfast friend and his... Tifa didn't have words for what Aeris had been to him. A friend, a support, a loved one - someone else who'd gone and died on him. Tifa wasn't sure she should be there if Cloud started to cry. Wasn't sure she shouldn't be elsewhere, before the knot in her throat choked her and she cried, too, for things too complicated to name.

But Aeris still held her hand, tugging gently, stubbornly, until Tifa was on the bed, too, sitting with her shoulder to Aeris's. Aeris slid her hand over, shifted her grip, palm to palm, soothing and warm.

"... No fair, we can't hug miss Lockhart. You're monopolizing her, babe."

Tifa blushed a little, more out of nerves than out of embarrassment, and Aeris stuck out her tongue at Zack over Cloud's bowed head. "There are only so many places in the middle, you know."

"Should have piled up."

Cloud sighed wearily; Zack and Aeris instantly sobered up.

"You two sound like this is all such a big joke at times..."

Zack growled and wrapped an arm around Cloud's back, stubborn. "Oh, shaddap, it wasn't a walk in the park to come back, you know."

"Really?" Cloud asked, a bit too tense under the neutral tone. "It doesn't sound like it, with how much you seem to care."

"Well sorry if I'd rather be happy to be alive again than mope and complain about the trip! It wasn't easy, okay? It wasn't easy at all."

"... Yeah?"

Cloud snuck a peek at Zack from under his bangs, head still hanging, shoulders slumped. Tifa felt compassion well up again. Cloud was so much more confident nowadays, it was strange to see him revert to mannerisms from his darkest hours. She didn't like it. And Cloud was right, it was a little hurtful to see how easily Zack and Aeris tried to smile away their concerns, as if they didn't deserve a serious response. But then she supposed she could see how Zack and Aeris would have a lot to be glad for...

"It was even harder than keeping you from joining us. And while we're on that topic, we're not your personal 'return to life' service, you know."

Tifa didn't get what he meant, but Cloud obviously did. His lips parted as if trying to talk, but it took him a few seconds before anything came out.

"You were really there. In the church." His voice was soft, almost reverent.

Aeris answered just as quietly, "Of course we were there."

"I saw you, but I kind of thought..." Cloud twirled his finger against his temple meaningfully, looking from Aeris to Zack and back to Aeris again.

"That you were seeing things again?" Aeris chuckled softly, and her hand covered Cloud's. "We just wanted to make sure you were... Feeling better."

"From what?" Tifa asked, a little tired of being the only one not to get it. She regretted asking at all when the three of them exchanged looks heavy with a meaning that she once again didn't get.

"Ah... Geostigma," Cloud answered, before she could tell them never mind.

She looked down at her lap. "Oh."

"And - and that ... depression, I guess it was, and leaving you and Marlene and Denzel alone like an idiot because I thought you guys would be better off if I didn't burden you." He sighed, shoulders slumping.

Tifa managed to smile.

"Stupid is the word," Aeris teased gently, taking the words out of her mouth.

Cloud had told Tifa he'd seen Aeris'sghost, once, quietly, in confidence - and she'd believed him, because they'd seen enough weird things, and Aeris had been the kind of special that made such strangeness unsurprising; but Tifa herself - never. Perhaps because she never put herself in the kind of danger that required intervention from Beyond. And Cloud was - special. She knew that. She acknowledged it.

To Tifa, the last she'd seen her friend had been the day she died before their shocked eyes - a flash of silver, protruding where cold metal had no business being, and a surprisingly small amount of blood, the chaos of a battle where they desperately tried to stop the monster from trampling her still form, and after that, a lifeless body sinking in a bottomless pool because they'd been too slow, too late.

While it helped to know that Aeris's spirit was still present in some way, still watching over them... It had hurt a bit that Tifa wasn't special enough.

It hurt now, that she still wasn't. She looked down at her foot, swinging it absently back and forth over the wooden floor.

"... I thought you were saying goodbye," Cloud whispered to them, pained.

"We were."

Cloud closed his eyes; Aeris rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, interlaced their fingers, gave him another kind, rueful smile.

"We never expected to be able to come back at all. Dead is dead, right? We'd accepted that. We just thought... We'd watch over the lot of you, as long as we could, and then... But Jenova seemed to be entirely gone and the troubles that cropped up afterwards weren't anything you needed us for. Or anything we could have done anything about, anyway."

Zack chuckled softly and ruffled Cloud's hair. "Seriously where do you come off, making mundane enemies who'd rather gun you down than summon rocks from outer space."

"Sorry," Cloud said dryly. "I'll stop antagonizing highwaymen now."

"Sounds like a good idea. 'Cause after the last time you went and got yourself shot like an idiot..."

Cloud made a little grimace at the reminder. It was the same face Denzel made when his awesome acrobatics on the neighbor's wooden fence ended up with said neighbor politely handing him a hammer and nails to fix the mess. The similarity made Tifa clench her hands; Aeris shot her a curious look, but Tifa pretended not to notice. It was a Zack expression, she realized that now.

She kept watching the three of them from the corner of her eye, trying not to intrude. Cloud fit so well with them.

"There are tides in the Lifestream, did you know that?"

Cloud arched an eyebrow at Aeris at the non sequitur. "...No?"

"It's more like a sea than like a stream, in the end... The energy swirls and pools and moves in waves, it's beautiful..." Aeris looked thoughtful for a moment. "I didn't realize back then, when I was alive, because Jenova had been disturbing the natural rhythms, but after she was gone... It's like, sometimes, when the Lifestream swells, it brushes the living world, and then when the biggest tide comes there's only just one more step to take to cross over."

Cloud looked away from her.

Aeris sounded a little pained. "It wasn't like we _wanted _to make you believe we were gone for good... But there was the flow of the Lifestream to stabilize and Jenova's remains to erase, and I didn't even know it was _possible_. No one ever told me..."

"And that was all you three needed to come back?" Tifa asked with a puzzled frown. "Then - how come there aren't more? Even if only Cetra can take that last step, surely..."

"Well... There are other conditions as well. There needs to be a body, and I need to have a strong personal connection with the person, and -"

"And what kind of strong connection would you have with _Sephiroth_?" Cloud interrupted, incredulous.

Aeris's hand clenched on Tifa's fingers, though her voice stayed perfectly friendly. "Well gee, he killed me. How much more personal can you get?"

There was silence then, Cloud going pale and Zack clenching his jaw and Aeris herself with her Cloud-side hand clenched into a fist on her lap. Tifa hadn't expected her to lose patience like this, and she stared, a little shocked.

She hadn't expected Aeris to show any real emotion at all, because so far all she'd shown was controlled gentleness and motherly patience and nothing else.

It felt... distant. Like Aeris was still watching over them all from above, not really part of it, not really there with them.

"Aeris?" she asked quietly. "Are you alright?"

Aeris let out a tired sigh and smoothed her shawl-skirt across her thighs mechanically, shoulders slumping. "... I'm fine. I'm sorry, Cloud. I didn't mean to be flippant, it's just - when we came back... I was so happy. We were in the pool - the water was so cold it almost hurt, and it was the most marvelous feeling in the world. And the columns were so solid and graceful, and the sunset through the windows..." She bit her lip. "...And I knew we'd see all of you soon... Aren't you glad to see us at all?"

Cloud looked away, as if the wooden floor suddenly seemed interesting. "Of course I'm glad."

"I'm sorry I snapped." Aeris took in a deep breath, glanced down at Tifa's hand in hers with faint surprise and squeezed a little, comfortingly. "I'm being unfair. I've been in Sephiroth's mind and I just can't be scared of him anymore, but it's not fair to expect you two to take us at our word."

Cloud nodded, and Tifa squeezed her hand, encouraging her to continue.

"Make no mistake, he's still a mess. Jenova worked him over, and he was raised as a human guinea pig by Hojo; it's a miracle he didn't snap earlier..."

"He's still not fine, so why...?" Cloud said.

"He's not, but now he wants to be."

Tifa made a doubtful frown. "So... What you are saying is that he was insane and none of it was really his fault."

"Oh hell no," Zack retorted. "He'll be the first to tell you at length why everything he ever did was his own damn choice and his own damn responsibility. And yeah, a lot of it was," he added quietly. "But being crazy isn't like being unconscious. It's more like lucid dreaming - everything makes perfect sense at the time. You're the one who makes all the decisions. But the consequences - it doesn't seem fully real either. And then you wake up and you realize how fucked up the rules you were going by were."

Cloud sighed. "That's a pretty metaphor, but it still tells me jack shit about how he's going to behave and whether I should forget my promise and just put him down in his sleep."

Tifa watched as Zack and Aeris exchanged a look that said volumes. "If we thought he'd need killing again, we wouldn't have helped him back," Zack said gently, and patted Cloud's back. Cloud exhaled slowly, eyes closed.

Tifa looked down at her feet. "But does he _deserve_ to be alive again?" She swallowed; it was a little painful. "After everyone he's killed, all the suffering he's caused - he didn't seem like a very different person to me. He was all ... aggressive and sarcastic and... Why is he - why did you two...?"

"Tifa?"

Aeris sounded surprised, as if she hadn't expected that, and it hurt. Tifa's head snapped up; and she knew she looked a little accusing but she couldn't stop it. It was like she didn't even remember he'd killed Tifa's father, left him bleeding out on the ground for Tifa to trip over. "Why does he deserve to be alive again, when all those innocents he's killed don't?"

Zack and Aeris didn't have an answer for her. Zack chuckled without humor, and Aeris watched her with sad eyes that bothered Tifa. It was almost as if Aeris was disappointed in her. Cloud's back was stiff, his head low, face hidden behind his hair.

"It's not about the most deserving, Tifa," Aeris said softly.

Tifa's voice sharpened with frustration. "Then what _is_ it about?"

"I had to know the person to bring them back. I had to know the exact shape of their mind. And I'm not even sure it could have worked with ... say, Cid, or Vincent. We didn't have time to get very close. Sephiroth... I touched his mind, and it almost wasn't enough."

Tifa left the bed, standing in front of them, too agitated to keep sitting at the end of the line. She didn't care about the technicalities. "But why _bother_?"

Zack shrugged and gave her a smile that looked fake to her. "Hey, stubborn as he is, he'd have found a way. He didn't want to die, and - well, Jenova or not, he still has a hell of a lot of raw power. Like that it's less traumatic for everyone, right?"

Tifa pulled her hand free from Aeris's hold and clenched it at her side. "That's not a reason, that's an excuse."

They both stared at her, fake, distancing smiles gone.

"I'm curious," Aeris said eventually. Her tone was a calm, measured kind that aimed to explain, but didn't apologize one inch. "I want to see how he grows, what he will become. What he does with his potential, this time around."

Tifa's back stiffened. "... Curious?"

Zack took over; though this time he didn't insult Tifa by trying to placate her with a smile. He was deadly serious as he answered, looking her straight in the eye. "I'm selfish. I want him here because I love him."

"But - he turned on you. Tried to kill you," Tifa reminded him, utterly baffled. He hadn't even changed his mind at the last second; if Cloud hadn't stopped it he would have gone through with it right there. And he was the reason Zack and Cloud had been captured and experimented on, the reason they became fugitives, the reason Zack ended up getting gunned down. She didn't get it, how Zack could really mean it even now.

Zack nodded soberly. "Yeah. Pissed me off. I still loved him. Hated him for a good long while, mind - but even then I still loved him."

Cloud's back hunched a little more. Zack gave him a sad look, and rubbed gently between his shoulder blades.

"Sorry, blondie. I'm not happy with dumping this mess on your lap."

Cloud's voice came muffled, less by his position than by all those emotions he wasn't letting through. "Didn't stop you doing it."

"Yeah," Zack said quietly. "Yeah. Like I said, I'm a selfish bastard. I don't like to let go of my people."

They all sat in silence for a minute, everyone watching Cloud's bowed head. Tifa thought briefly that it was unfair, the way everyone kept pinning everything on him.

But it had to be him, she knew. As equal as they all professed to be, he had been the driving force of Avalanche, the keystone without which nothing would hold up. This time around didn't seem like it would be different.

"Let's sleep on it." Cloud didn't straighten up. "We're all tired. We'll call the others and see what they think tomorrow."

He climbed on his feet; Zack's hand fell off his back, Aeris didn't move to hold him. Just like Tifa, they could tell that he wouldn't have welcomed it.

"Denzel's bed is too small, so you two can have mine. Mind sharing?"

Sighing, Aeris got up too, and smiled, though it seemed sad to Tifa. "It's fine. We'll see you in the morning then?"

"Yeah. Sure."

Tifa stepped aside and watched them as Cloud walked them through the short distance to his own bedroom door, on the other side of the corridor. She met Zack's eyes briefly as he murmured his goodnights, and then their door closed, and Cloud came back to her room. He closed that door too, and then they were alone in a silence so heavy she sank back on the bed under its weight.

There were things she wanted to ask him about, things she and Cloud should probably discuss now, without the two of them. She couldn't formulate a single one properly.

"...Let's sleep, Tifa."

Biting her lip, she nodded without looking at him. She toed off her shoes and crawled across the bed to the far side. The lights went off.

When he followed her under the covers, she wished it could have been one of those times he knocked at her door and joined her to make love. She felt around for his hand and squeezed.

She could still feel the warmth of Aeris's fingers, but she didn't know if that was a comfort anymore.

* * *

Cloud had been asleep for a grand total of three hours when his cell phone rang. Frowning fuzzily, he grabbed for it, already trying to word a way to explain he wasn't taking jobs right now that wouldn't alienate the customer forever. Customer management was the kind of skill that needed his concentration, so he almost asked the other man to repeat.

And then it clicked and the words made sense.

"Cloud, it's Reeve. We need you and Tifa in Wutai. Yuffie's father died."


	5. Chapter 4

"Heart attack, apparently."

Cloud ran his fingers through sleep-tangled hair and checked the time on his cell phone. Barely five AM. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, wishing he could have slept a little longer before getting the news. What time was it in Wutai? He didn't know.

"Oh... Poor Yuffie. That's..."

Cloud nodded, head bowed. Of the whole Avalanche gang, she'd been the only one to still have family; Tifa's father and Cloud's mother were gone with Nibelheim, Bugenhagen had passed on a year or so ago, and even if Cid still had relatives, by now they'd been estranged longer than not.

"She's still so young..."

Cloud had been younger when his mom died, but drugged as he'd been, he hadn't fully realized he was an orphan until he was about the age she was now.

It was always a little strange to remember that Yuffie was almost twenty-one. For them she was still a bratty teenager, the baby of the group. Still acted like it, too, all rashness and impulsive decisions. Cloud wondered if she would act like that again from now on.

His phone beeped; he checked the screen, frowned. "The Shera will be in Kalm to get Barret in five hours, it leaves us one hour to get ready before we have to drive over." He glanced at Tifa, voice quiet. "If we're both going with the bike. If you take the van, you should probably leave earlier."

He wasn't sure he should go. On one hand, Yuffie would need emotional support, and Reeve wanted them there as fast as possible. On the other hand, Tifa was better at comfort and he didn't want to be a continent away if Sephiroth woke up. Zack... Cloud remembered him from his teenage days as awe-inspiringly strong, but he had no clue how that measured up to the levels Cloud and Sephiroth were at, now. And he didn't know much about Aeris's magic.

But Yuffie wasn't just a grieving girl. Now that her father had died, she was Lady Yuffie, Shogun of Wutai.

Reeve had mentioned that. Almost offhandedly.

It wasn't something that should have had a place in a conversation about a mourning friend. Not if the mourning part was the only thing they had to care about.

Cloud frowned and left the bed, turning on the ceiling light. He didn't follow Wutai politics all that closely, but everyone knew Yuffie had done her very best to dodge her father's attempts to groom her as his successor the way he saw fit. Lord Godo had taught her some, but not nearly as much as he could have. Her way to help Wutai was to roam the world, looking for things to bring home, and to train its children in martial arts so they wouldn't be powerless if attacked again; Cloud couldn't imagine her sitting on a throne, doing paperwork, or dealing with ministers. She wasn't patient or subtle in the slightest.

She was going to need someone to watch out for the sharks in the water, just as much as she would need friends to comfort her.

"Cloud?"

"... Mmh. I was just thinking about politics." He pulled on the shirt he'd taken off, only a few hours ago, and stepped back into his shoes. "It wouldn't hurt to show that she has powerful friends..."

"Ah, I see." Tifa looked even more worried now; evidently it hadn't been her first thought.

"Reeve won't be able to stay with her long. He has WRO to take care of..." Cloud went through their list of friends in his mind. Cid would offend and scandalize every single nobleman in Wutai before a week; Barret would prompt them to demand a duel by the end of the first day. Red could be wise, but he had little experience with human politics, and people would see him as more of a talking guard dog than as a sharp-minded advisor - which could be an asset, but only if Yuffie had someone else to rest on more visibly, to discourage people from even trying. Vincent, maybe, if he could be found in time...

And maybe Yuffie's father had been smart and had perfectly competent advisors ready to step in and support her to the end. It was hard to trust outsiders, though... But from their point of view, Cloud was probably the one who was an outsider.

And they had Sephiroth in the attic to worry about, too.

God, he couldn't even really wrap his mind about that one. His thoughts kept skittering away from it.

"I'm going to wake up Zack and Aeris," he said. Perhaps they would have insight - perhaps not, but they needed to be told anyway.

When he opened Tifa's bedroom door, he was faced with Zack, who was already peering through Cloud's own bedroom door, bleary-eyed and his hair just as much of a mess as Cloud's own. He seemed to have helped himself to a pair of Cloud's boxer shorts.

"Was that a phone?"

Even now, with so many pressing worries, his voice still made a little thrill of shock go up Cloud's back. Zack was real. If Cloud reached out, his hand would find sleep-warm flesh. He didn't reach, even though his history of vivid hallucinations still insisted he needed to make sure.

"Yeah. Yuffie - one of our friends, her father just died."

"Oh, hell."

Zack gave him a commiserating look and stepped back, allowing Cloud to stand in the doorway. Aeris was curled up on her side in the middle of the bed, her long hair strewn in waves over Cloud's pillows. Cloud wanted to laugh a little, imagining her slender body relegating big strong Zack to the edge of the mattress. It was surprisingly easy to see.

It made him wish he'd forgotten about their stupid argument and spent the night watching them sleep. Even with the knowledge that today would be exhausting no matter what he chose to do, he couldn't feel like it would have been time wasted.

"Cloud?"

He blinked and looked at Zack. The man stood with his hand on the doorjamb, head tilted expectantly.

"-Ah. I'm just woolgathering. Tired."

Zack nodded, and then slung an arm around Cloud's neck without warning. Cloud twitched and had to force himself to relax.

"I'm gonna have to train you all over again, I see," Zack said with a little too much good cheer for this topic and this hour of the night. Cloud sent him a half-hearted glare, which he undermined some more when he didn't even try to get free.

"I'm not that bad anymore," he said, rueful. Granted, he still had a healthy sense of personal space, but that was nothing like how averse to physical contact he'd been when he joined the army.

Zack was just as warm as Cloud had suspected. Solid, too. Cloud wished he could just bask a little longer, but there was precious little time to waste. He shrugged his shoulders; Zack sighed, and ruffled his hair affectionately before letting go.

"What are you gonna do?"

Cloud ran a hand over his face, futilely trying to kickstart his brain. "I don't know. It's not like I can just decide not to go - it's her father's funerals. She might forgive me eventually, but I'd never forgive myself. But..."

Zack rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, where is it? If it's not too far, you could hop over and come back..."

"Wutai."

Zack winced.

"Did I mention Yuffie is Lord Godo's only heir, or even family?" Cloud asked with a touch of cynicism. Zack's wince turned into a full-blown grimace.

"You've got interesting buddies... Aw hell, so there's all that stiff upper lip business on top of it. She's gonna need friends even more." Zack sighed. "But it's not like you can stuff him in a crate and bring him along. Pretty sure the Wutainese wouldn't be too happy to have a grumpy, half-awake Silver Demon doing a jack-in-the-box impression in the middle of their court."

Cloud groaned, in full agreement. "Taking him along is right out." He had visions of a riot in the city, people trying to throw the sleeping man on Lord Godo's funeral pyre... "Yeah, definitely out."

Zack nodded. "Okay, so Seph stays in his tower."

Cloud blinked at him. What...? - oh, right. Sleeping princess. The thought of the Demon General in a pretty dress awaiting true love's kiss startled a small chuckle out of him, mostly because of how brain-breaking it was.

"... If I stay here to guard him, everyone is going to demand to know why. Yuffie doesn't need the stress now. But if I go, I'll never be back in time if anything happens."

"Aeris and I can't go anyway," Zack said with blunt practicality. "It's not like a funeral is the best place to go 'heya! We just returned from the dead, how'd you do'."

Cloud grimaced faintly. "That... would probably be bad." And wasn't that an understatement.

"So there you have it. We stay, you go. Tell people afterwards."

Cloud tried not to look too skeptical, but from Zack's vaguely offended glare he didn't succeed. "Aeris isn't an offensive fighter, and I'm not sure you can win against him on your own."

"I could hold him back long enough for Aeris to knock him out again, if he wanted to run. We make a good team." Zack yawned, stretched his arms over his head, muscles rolling under tanned skin. You would think being dead for so long would leave him out of shape, Cloud thought confusedly. But then again it wasn't really Zack's body...

"See something you like?"

Cloud jerked, tearing his eyes away from Zack's chest. The man was laughing silently, shoulders shaking with mirth.

"...You're not conceited at all, are you."

"Aw, poor tired, zoning-out Cloudypoo."

"Cloudy_poo_?" Cloud got a headpat for his troubles, and halfheartedly batted Zack's hand away. "Will you quit it already. I'm twenty-six, not sixteen."

Zack seemed sincerely taken aback for a second. "... Really? Wow. My baby is all grown up."

He sobered up, crossing his arms over his bare chest and leaning against the wall. He gazed up at the ceiling, a frown on his face.

"Not sure what kind of security measures we could take that would satisfy you..."

"He's resilient to magic, if I recall right," Cloud said. "I'm not sure the Sleep spell will hold long. Maybe pills..."

"Nah, a chocobo dose would only keep him down for a few hours, and when he'd wake up he'd have a drug hangover to take out on us."

Zack had said the last bit as a joke, but Cloud couldn't help but visualize it happening, and he grimaced. "Mnh. I might find restraints that would hold him in Hojo's old lab in the Shinra tower ruins..."

"Shit, Cloud." Zack stared at him, visibly pained. "Are you sure you really want to do that?"

Cloud felt a little sick at the very mention of the labs, of the possibility he'd have to return there, but he made himself consider it anyway, forcing past his visceral reaction. _No one deserved the labs._ Not even Sephiroth? Used as punishment it made him feel dirty - as if Hojo was looking over his shoulder being _proud,_ shit, either kill him or don't, he didn't torture people. But in everyone else's best interests... He didn't know. It wasn't like he planned to cut Sephiroth open, and the examination tables were built pretty sturdy, with lots of straps to distribute the pressure and keep from digging too sharply into flesh...

He imagined falling asleep in a dusty attic and waking on gleaming metal. Strapped down flat on his back, all that strength useless. And the scent, Hojo always had everything cleaned with manic precision but the stench of chemicals and fear never went away. He could almost smell it now; if he inhaled too deeply he feared he'd be there again.

"... I... No." Cloud chuckled a little, though the sound held little actual amusement. "Hell no. If he isn't crazy now, he would be if he woke up like that."

Zack nodded, opened his mouth to say something else, but then Cloud felt his barrier pop like a soap bubble and stiffened.

"Get Aeris," he said as he darted in his dark bedroom to get a sword and a handful of Materia from the rack. "Tifa's in the shower. Get ready to move them. Barrier's down."

He went to the staircase without waiting for an answer, stalked up to the attic. He didn't know whether Zack would have asked to come with him, or told him to relax; both were unacceptable. As far as he knew Sephiroth had woken up refreshed and ready to mow down a crowd of civilians or two before breakfast. If Zack tried to follow, Cloud would just kick him down the stairs.

At first glance he could see no one in the attic. The window was closed; the latch was on the inside so if Sephiroth had slipped out through there it should have been left ajar. The thought came to Cloud that perhaps Sephiroth had just moved in his sleep; it didn't look like he had left, they would have crossed paths in the stairwell. Cloud slowly moved across the wooden floor, sword ready, stepped around the chest of drawers blocking the view.

Sephiroth sat on the edge of his mattress, long legs crossed loosely, one of them extended over the planks just far enough to pierce the barrier.

Cloud came to a stop just beside the chest of drawers and watched him.

It was - strange. Strange expression on Sephiroth's face, almost absent, eyes unfocused; strange position, as if he'd deliberately popped the barrier to warn Cloud he was up.

No - not 'as if'.

He could have left. He hadn't.

Cloud wondered if Sephiroth had come awake with the thought that it was time to die.

"Strife," the man said, looking up at him.

When he gave a faint nod of greeting, Cloud couldn't help but nod back, polite, his sword still held firm and ready.

Sephiroth ignored the weapon, looked up at the skylight with a neutral expression that didn't, to Cloud's eyes, manage to hide a trace of wistfulness. Outside a couple of stars melted away into the first blush of dawn.

"You'll have a better view if you get up," Cloud said quietly, and even to himself couldn't tell why.

Sephiroth looked at him then, surprise lurking in his strangely solemn eyes. Cloud wanted to cross his arms defensively, say he could still change his mind and would Sephiroth prefer that? But it might have... he didn't know. Broken something, ended it. So he stood quiet and waited.

Sephiroth slowly unfolded his legs and climbed to his feet, picked his way through the clutter. He didn't try to open the window. He didn't look at Edge or the ruins of Midgar - just at the sky.

It was a little surreal. The strange backdrop of the attic, the civil behavior, that proud and lethal almost-god standing barefoot and shirtless in the dust for the privilege of taking in the view of rusty Edge through a dirty window.

"It's early for a phone call."

Cloud frowned, startled out of his thoughts. "That's what woke you up?"

"Yes." Sephiroth glanced sideway at him. A hint of humor sparked in his green eyes and went into hiding again. Cloud arched an eyebrow, prompting him; while Sephiroth still didn't look directly at him, he did keep talking. "That ring tone..."

Heh. It did sound similar to the one assigned to President Shinra's personal line. "Afraid of another callgirl emergency?"

It was only when Sephiroth turned to meet his eyes that Cloud realized he shouldn't have known about the time a prostitute left with the content of Shinra Senior's personal safe. Shouldn't have remembered Seph's execrable mood when he stalked in the mess hall and growled in clipped words that he'd spent half the day at Don Corneo's and the rest combing the slums for a whore he hadn't even found in the end, and good riddance to her; that would teach Shinra to call the police next time instead of an army general. Shouldn't have known what that ring tone sounded like, because he had never heard it.

Shouldn't even have understood, from so many silences, that the little ups and downs of Sephiroth's ordinary Shinra days were even still remembered, after he'd tried to ascend to godhood and everything that ensued.

Sephiroth's eyes narrowed, staring at Cloud as if trying to guess how much he knew and how. But if there was a list of things Cloud didn't want to discuss with him, that unexplainable moment of understanding was probably close to the top.

"Phone call was from Wutai," he said, not even knowing why he bothered to tell him except that he needed a distraction. "Lord Godo Kisaragi just died."

Sephiroth arched an eyebrow. "Assassinated?"

Cloud was taken aback. "Not to my knowledge." But now the possibility was a little more present in his mind. There were poisons that could make it look natural - especially in Wutai.

Sephiroth's thoughts had followed a different direction. "It seems an internal matter. Why were you called?"

Cloud arched an eyebrow. Yuffie had been there when they crossed paths - but then again he probably hadn't really made the link, or cared to remember. "Yuffie Kisaragi was part of Avalanche."

"Ah. I see." By his faintly puzzled frown it was obvious he couldn't place her, though.

"Scrawny brunette with a boomerang. She whacked you a couple of times."

The frown didn't change. "... If you say so."

Cloud snorted quietly, amused despite his best judgment.

"Who is next in line after... Lady Kisaragi?"

"Why on earth do you want to know?" Cloud asked, instantly suspicious.

Sephiroth turned to face him, neutral, almost blank. "Would she be desperate enough to commit suicide?"

Cloud stiffened. "Hell no she wouldn't. What -"

Sephiroth lifted a hand to ask for a little more patience; Cloud didn't know why he granted it.

"Is her public persona such that her subjects could believe it of her?"

"...What are you implying?"

Sephiroth crossed his arms loosely, head tilted with casual elegance. "That back when his wife died, Lord Godo spent a lot of time avoiding well-meaning attempts to help him join her. Not all of them came from Shinra." Cloud stared; Sephiroth sent him a cynical look. "Wutai politics owe a lot to their status as a warrior nation."

He couldn't be serious. Could he?

"_Warrior_," Cloud said. "Not politician. How is that even comparable?"

"The only difference between politics and war is that in politics your hands have to look clean while you bury your enemy six feet under. The burying itself need not be metaphorical."

Cloud hissed between clenched teeth. "Enough. I get it. Why are you telling me that?"

Sephiroth nodded his head toward the window and the lightening sky outside.

A warning in thanks for being allowed to see a sunrise? Damn it, the bastard wasn't allowed to make him feel guilty. Cloud grunted an acknowledgement and leaned on his sword, pretending not to care, not to notice the General's face as his eyes roamed over the rough landscape. From the window Cloud knew you could only see a little of Midgar's ruins and the old reactors; then there was Edge and its salvage-built houses, and the half-dead plains stretching far behind.

"I do have a noted tendency to paranoia," Sephiroth allowed.

Cloud had one too; and now with some corroborating facts his own paranoia was flaring up. "They wouldn't believe it," he said. "Not Yuffie. She's too... No. She's very public about her opinion on giving up."

"Then for the moment at least she is safe. It would look too suspicious if she had an accident so soon."

Cloud shook his head in disbelief at the whole situation. Sephiroth was being so _polite_, it was so wrong. "You're trying to mess with my head, aren't you," he said, and didn't even know how serious the comment was, how much he actually believed it.

Sephiroth arched an eyebrow at him in that aristocratic, 'beg pardon?' way. "... I assure you I'm not."

"Uh huh. Right, so-"

Aeris's voice rang from the staircase. "Cloud?"

A jolt of pure adrenaline ran through his veins at the thought of her coming into the danger zone. It didn't even matter that she'd been fine for _hours_ before he found them yesterday, or how civil Sephiroth was acting at the moment. Cloud stiffened and called back, "Stay where you are! I'll be there in a minute."

The moment was definitely over. He didn't have to tell Sephiroth so; the man just turned away from the window and sat on the mattress, legs crossed.

Cloud stood in front of him in silence, and then shook his head at his own soft-heartedness and said briskly, "You might wake up again. Whatever happens, don't leave the room. I'll take it as a breach of our agreement." They both knew what would follow if that happened.

"That was always understood, Mister Strife."

The hint of mockery in his voice made it easy for Cloud to cast, dropping him like a stone with no warning. Sephiroth's eyes fluttered closed and he toppled backwards on the mattress, folded legs slowly relaxing, dragging on the wooden floor.

Under the dirt, the bottom of his feet was crisscrossed with half-healed slices and puncture marks.

Sector Five. The field of rubble and glass he'd crossed barefoot. He'd never mentioned it, of course, never showed it on his face. Damn him.

None of it looked infected - it wouldn't get infected easily, not with his mako levels, but the wounds were still dirty. Growling under his breath, Cloud reached for a healing spell - and then he paused. His first instinct was to fix him, because it was wrong to let someone go without treatment, prisoner or not - but this was Sephiroth. Slaughterer of many, threat to the human race and the Planet as a whole, cold-blooded enemy of everything that lived. Of course he hadn't complained, he had known Cloud wouldn't pity him for a few scrapes.

Cloud still didn't pity him. And even then it was still wrong.

He threw a healing spell at him, the knitting flesh pushing out the debris, and then in quick succession cast two layered bubble shields around the mattress, and a spell of Silence on top; Sephiroth had no Materia at hand anyway, it didn't matter if he was made unable to cast, but Cloud knew from experience it would muffle sounds, make them harder to comprehend or pay attention to, and perhaps the waking town wouldn't disturb the man again. After that he turned around and stalked out, and he didn't look back.

* * *

Aeris woke up more exhausted than she'd been when she fell asleep. Things were dark and heavy, and oh, she was so tired.

"...ris, babe, wake up."

The world wasn't green and entangled and _there_. She shivered, confused, sought the voice that was a million voices, found nothing. The silence - the absence - was deafening.

"Aeris, c'mon, hon. Cloud and Tifa need you."

An image, Zack leaning over her. No _presence_. So strange. She opened her eyes again, and squinted at Zack's face ... fuzzy around the edges until she blinked him into focus, and then he was solid and clear as he had never been back in the - "Oh."

Aeris closed her eyes, took in a deep breath of slightly musty man-bedroom air, and laughed.

"... Um. What? Do I have something on my face?"

It was so strange not to feel him - his personality, his mind, his soul. So strange not to communicate that way, half deliberate words and half entangled edges-of-self. But his warmth, his voice - they were better than her memories. Grinning up at Zack, she reached to pat his cheek. Her hand was heavy.

"No, seriously, what's so funny?"

She poked his nose with a finger and nudged him back to give herself the space to sit up. When she stretched her arms overhead, her muscles ached all the way down her back. It was marvelous. Her head wouldn't clear, though. She yawned. "I hope you have a great reason not to let me sleep."

Zack sobered up; so did she, smile falling away. Had something happened with Sephiroth?

"Yuffie's dad passed away."

Aeris's first reflex was to say 'no, he hasn't,' Because she would have known, wouldn't she? "Are you sure?" she asked instead, fingers curling in the blankets on her lap.

Zack gave her a surprised look. "Cloud and Tifa are expected for the service, so... Yeah, kinda."

Aeris shook her head, surprised despite herself. She knew better than to count on her gift - it had always been erratic. She didn't know Yuffie's father that well anyway, they'd only met once; it wasn't such a surprise that she hadn't felt him cross over. Perhaps it was the tides, the closeness of the Lifestream waning, pulling away from her... She wasn't in the Lifestream anymore; of course the all-present _knowing _would stop.

Back when she was alive the first time, she had known for her mother's husband that she had never met, known before Elmyra Gainsborough did, because Elmyra's husband was connected to Elmyra, and Elmyra was connected to her. She had known for Zack, even though at the time she hadn't been able to put a name to that sudden, unprompted sorrow.

"Hm. It can't happen all the time, I guess," she said quietly. Zack tilted his head and gave her an inquisitive look.

"What can't happen all the time?"

"Ah, nothing important. Woolgathering again." She slipped out of bed, wobbling, and leaned on Zack for a second, for warmth more than for balance. She'd forgotten how touching someone felt. How heavy and solid, so little like touching minds in the Lifestream and yet so much more comforting in a strange, animal way.

"Cloud's upstairs with Seph," Zack said quietly. "Trying to decide whether to stay or go. Told me to get ready to move you and Tifa out."

Aeris winced. "I see." She needed to make sure they weren't arguing. "I'll be right back," she told Zack, and slipped out of the bedroom.

"Babe-"

"Wait for Tifa," she said without turning back. She stepped in the staircase.

The attic was silent; she didn't know whether that was a good sign.

"Cloud?"

The answer came back right away, tense and stern, making her wince. "Stay where you are! I'll be there in a minute."

Aeris hesitated. She would have liked to see Sephiroth, exchange a few words perhaps, in the rare event that he felt sociable. In the end, though, it would hurt Cloud's feelings if she disregarded his warning. She didn't want another argument.

Cloud came along after a short time, a sword propped on his shoulder, his expression already weary. But he smiled at her anyway, eyes lingering on her face, drinking her in. She smiled back. Oh, Cloud. She wished she hadn't had to drag up all those old hurts.

She preceded him down to the corridor, bare feet light on the floor. The sensation was strange, distracting. She splayed her toes and smiled.

"... What are you doing?"

Aeris chuckled and turned to face him. "Wooden floors. I missed them."

"You did?"

She couldn't help but laugh at his bemused expression. "I missed everything."

"Oh," he said quietly, and nothing else, so she stepped closer and leaned against him, her side to his chest, her head on his shoulder.

"Everything. But you and our friends the most."

He breathed out in her hair, an arm coming up to hug her shoulders briefly. "...I missed fresh-baked bread a lot, when I was in the labs."

Aeris huffed and poked him in the chest with an accusing finger. "Of course you say that in the middle of the night, when all the bakeries will be closed."

Cloud chuckled softly as he leaned away from her. She allowed him to put some distance back between them, her own smile growing more subdued.

"I want you to promise me he's going to stay asleep."

Aeris blinked and tilted her head, not sure how to read that. "Well, of course. Isn't that what we agreed on? The neighborhood will be safe, I promise."

Cloud shook his head, allowing her to see exactly how tired he was. "I don't want you to promise that the neighborhood will be safe, Aeris. I want you to promise that you will keep casting those Sleep spells, and he will stay under, and at no time will he wake up."

For a second she was a little hurt that he was looking at her like that - as if he couldn't quite trust her to be on his side, to respect his decisions. But there was precedent, wasn't there? She hadn't asked anyone's opinion before going to pray for Holy either. She still didn't regret it.

"I admit it might be... tempting," she said quietly, "to sit him down at a table and feed him, or allow him to take a bath. Or look out of a window."

She caught a strange expression on Cloud's face, but it was gone too fast for her to read it. She tilted her head in question, but he was impassive once again.

"... I know you'll be the one who has to kill him if I'm wrong." She didn't think she was wrong, but she knew that wasn't the sticking point.

"I do trust you," Cloud said, a bit fast, like he'd been rehearsing it and he wanted to be sure, _sure _she got it. "But ... I'm the one he gave the right to judge him. That means I'm responsible."

She placed a hand on his chest, fingers spread open. "I _know_, Cloud. I won't let him wake up. I promise."

Cloud gave a slow nod, shoulders relaxing. "And you won't let Zack wake him up either?"

She rolled her eyes at him, amused. "How many copies do you want that contract in?"

Cloud snorted quietly, and his eyes softened.

"Because I'm sure we could get Reeve's legal team on it, if we ask nicely..."

Zack emerged from the corner of the corridor and peeked at them. He was smiling, but Aeris could tell he was worried.

"I'm going to Wutai," Cloud said decisively.

"You are?" Zack blinked, taken aback. "- I mean, okay. Of course you are. Ah, but don't worry, we'll hold down the fort!"

Aeris chuckled. Subtle way to pretend they hadn't noticed something had made Cloud Strife change his mind. Not really.

"That's what I'm worried about," Cloud muttered, and accepted another Zack Fair hair ruffle with minimum grumbling.

"Don't be like that. Everything will go just fine."

"Yeah, about that," Cloud said, nudging him in the ribs with an elbow. "Like I told Aeris, I'll be much obliged if you don't wake him up. At all. For any reason."

"What if there's a fire?" Zack asked, not quite managing to make it sound like a joke.

"He'll burn," Cloud retorted, but it didn't even sound angry. Defensive, yes, but it was more like a memory of anger, the awareness that he perhaps should have been. "... Shove him in a potato sack and drag him out if you really have to. Just don't wake him. I know the spell will wear off, but... Just cast again. Please."

Zack sighed, surrendering. "Aye-aye, sir."

"How about you go tell Tifa and take a shower?" Aeris suggested to end the uncomfortable conversation. "We'll make you two something to eat; you're going to be in transit a while."

"That'd be great, thanks," Cloud said, and walked off down the corridor, still looking preoccupied.

Zack followed Aeris down the staircase, though he gave the ascending flight a lingering look.

"Don't push it right now, Zack," she cautioned.

"I wasn't going to. It just kind of sucks, you know."

Aeris smiled at him over her shoulder. "Sometimes Cloud does need nagging, but where Sephiroth is concerned, I guarantee things will go a lot faster if we let him convince himself. Case in point..."

Zack blinked, nodded thoughtfully, and gave her a little smile.

* * *

Her kitchen was full of dead people.

By full of course Tifa only meant two, and neither "dead" nor "undead" sounded quite like the right term - formerly deceased? - but they seemed to command all the space nonetheless.

Well. Aeris did. The only part of Zack's anatomy Tifa could see from the door was his ass, as he folded in two to check the contents of the bottom of the fridge; and while it did attract some attention, she wouldn't have called it 'commanding', exactly.

Then she noticed the bruise-colored shadows under Aeris' eyes and the faint tiredness in her smile of greeting, and then the girl stopped looking so otherworldly.

"Good morning," Tifa said, smiling crookedly.

She stepped into the kitchen, glad for the towel she was twisting around her wet hair, keeping her hands busy. Zack waved at her over the fridge door and then plunged back in. Tifa was rather glad for that too. She didn't have the faintest idea what to say to him.

She didn't know what to say to Aeris either, except a quiet "Thank you" when Aeris picked up the coffee pot and waved it toward the cups meaningfully.

Damp towel across her shoulders, Tifa sat, watching the black liquid pour in. It gave her the strange feeling of being a guest in her own kitchen, but that only added a little disquieting, embarrassed note to the rest of the confusion.

"Sugar?"

"Yes, please. ...The top shelf. Thank you."

"Aha! Ham," Zack exclaimed, brandishing the paper-wrapped slices, startling her.

"... Yes?" Tifa inquired, blinking.

"It's to make the two of you sandwiches for the road. You'll be in transit for a while, right?"

"I'm sure Cid will have food onboard his ship, though..."

"Oh."

Zack looked disappointed for a second, almost enough to make her want to apologize; but he just put the ham back in and started rummaging again. Tifa took a sip of coffee. The kitchen felt full of things unsaid.

In one way, she felt like she knew him - from the little Cloud had shared, from the lot he'd implied, or assumed, or had nightmares about. Zack had been part of her background for so long. In another, much more concrete way, to Tifa he was a virtual stranger, an acquaintance at best. But he behaved in such a casually friendly way...

"Chocolate okay? - oho, strawberry jam."

Tifa smiled a little, though that was mostly politeness, an acknowledgement of his efforts. "That would be nice. Thank you."

Yesterday's argument weighed on her mind still, unresolved, souring the wonder she should have felt. And then there was Yuffie, the grief she must be dealing with... Tifa was just glad the two of them seemed to be content with empty platitudes, content to put deeper matters on hold until next time.

Cloud wouldn't be long. Tifa drained the rest of her cup decisively and picked up the PHS recharging on the counter. No messages. She thought for a second, then entered Denzel's number. It was late - early - but if she woke him up he could always sleep in Cid's ship...

She got the answering service.

"Tifa? What's wrong?"

Tifa realized she was chewing on her lip and glanced at Aeris. "Denzel put his PHS in sleep mode. He's not answering."

"Do you think something happened?" Zack said immediately, straightening up as he stared at her face.

Tifa realized how tense she was, and let her shoulders relax with a long sigh. "No, no. I mean, the three of you, plus Yuffie's father, plus some unrelated enemy who would know where to find him, it would be a bit much for one night. I just thought he'd want to come." That, and she couldn't help but want him far away from everything Sephiroth-related if Cloud wasn't around to keep an eye on things.

Zack nodded slowly and leaned a hip against the table. "Just go and pick him up, then."

"I would if I knew where he was staying," Tifa replied with some frustration.

"...Huh. You don't know?"

Tifa turned away from him and started fussing with the toaster. "No. He has his PHS and I know he's safe, that's good enough."

It made her sound like a bad parent, even though she trusted Denzel fine; she knew he had a roof over his head and a responsible adult that she likely knew personally keeping an eye on him - she had made sure to meet all his friends' parents, just in case.

She hadn't wanted to know with which one of his friends he had chosen to stay, because if she didn't know then no one could force it out of her. She didn't want to say that; it sounded so dramatic.

A toast popped out. Too early. She pushed it back in with her fingertips and reset the timer. Cloud had fiddled with it again, she could tell.

"It's alright, he can join us later - Cid's freighter planes do a couple trips a day, we'll arrange something. I'll ask Elmyra if she can drive him, send Denzel a message to get in touch with her..."

She paused as the quality of the silence behind her shifted, and then realized.

Aeris was standing by the counter, a strange smile on her face.

It was easy enough to fake Aeris's default attitude: her serene, self-assured friendliness. But the girl Tifa had known had been so much more than the impartially benevolent goddess some people painted her as, afterwards. So different.

She'd been the most horrible kind of tease; and even though she rarely spread any gossip, she sure liked to hear it; and she loved to play armchair psychologist; and when you were sad or discouraged she was more likely to prod you to get back up on your feet than comfort you - she'd been human. She looked human right now, lost in a too-large shirt and with that smile on her lips that failed to be quite as confidently reassuring as it aimed to be - too shaky. Too true.

"...Aeris?"

"It's okay, I just - Mom." She gave a watery chuckle. "Is - is she well?"

Oh. Tifa stepped closer slowly, heart constricting in shared pain. It was a good pain, though, she could tell - a hopeful kind of yearning. "She's fine. She still lives in Kalm - Barret and I drive there every other weekend with the children. Marlene calls her Grandma, you know," she added quietly.

Aeris closed her eyes, steadying herself, and gave a little chuckle that was only slightly less shaky than the previous one. "I bet she likes that."

"A lot." Now it wasn't so hard to reach out, touch Aeris's shoulder, give a soft, understanding smile. "When we come back... I'll drive you there, alright? She'll be so happy."

Aeris let out a little sigh and leaned against Tifa's shoulder, eyes still closed. "That would be really nice. And I think your toast is burning."

Tifa blinked, but Zack was already leaning over the table to get to the toaster, so she didn't have to step away from Aeris. She blushed a little; she'd forgotten the man was there for a short moment. Even now he was trying to be unobtrusive, which wasn't very easy when you were juggling hot toast and yelping. Tifa chuckled, and Aeris too, when she opened her eyes to see what was funny.

"... I'm fine. I don't know what came over me..."

Tifa nudged her gently with an elbow. "Yes, I really don't know, I mean, it isn't like she's your _mother_ or you haven't seen her in years and thought you never would again or anything..."

Aeris gave a little huff, and then one of those brilliant grins that always startled Tifa with all the _life_ they packed. "Alright! I'll hold you to that. It's good you offered, because I like the idea of a personal chauffeur, and I am _not_ riding with Zack."

"Oi!" he protested. "I don't drive that badly! Like you can talk anyway, you're a menace on the road."

"Yes, and whose fault is that, teacher?"

Cloud appeared in the doorway, arching an eyebrow at the lot of them in confusion. "Driving where?"

"Oh," Tifa said as she watched Zack and Aeris bicker, "to see Elmyra."

Cloud's expression softened in understanding. "I see. Good idea."

He stepped in, took the abandoned piece of toast from the table, then made a face and started scraping off the well-toasted parts with a knife.

"I called Denzel, but he must have his PHS on sleep mode," Tifa told him, rolling her eyes a little as she put in another slice of bread in the toaster. "I think he'll want to come, but..."

Cloud nodded thoughtfully. "Can't wait. We'll coordinate from the road."

She frowned. So he'd decided to come, but... "Are you sure? Cid has a ship crossing the ocean every six hours, we could catch the next one..."

"Reeve said he needed to talk to us, and he won't have time if we arrive late. Denzel shouldn't be at the wake anyway. He might as well get there the next day."

Tifa nodded slowly, more because she didn't have any solid argument against it than because she felt extremely convinced. She thought about staying instead, waiting for him and then going together in the morning. But Yuffie, alone and orphaned...

But Denzel, in Edge, with Sephiroth nearby.

"Cloud," she said quietly. "What are we going to do about Sephiroth?"

He paused with the half-eaten toast raised, then put it down and looked at her. Aeris and Zack had stilled as well, expectant.

"He'll wait."

It wasn't ... dismissive, wasn't 'whatever, he can wait! I won't hurry for him'. It was closer to 'it's alright, he said he'd be patient'. Tifa blinked at Cloud, a little shocked, more than a little confused. Cloud had a faint frown on his face; he gazed at the table without really seeing it. He was probably remembering the talk, but Tifa didn't understand the expression, not connected to Sephiroth. It was thoughtful when it should have been defensive or suspicious.

"He could have escaped. He didn't know I'd be leaving, so as far as he knew that was the only opening he would get. So..." His frown deepened. "Whatever his game is, it demands him to play it straight for now. He'll wait."

Tifa released tension she hadn't been aware she was gathering. It had just felt strange at first, when she started wondering if Cloud actually _trusted _his word. Because Cloud trusting Sephiroth, just like that, meant she couldn't trust Cloud anymore. Cloud hadn't had behavior or memory issues in a very long time, but then again Sephiroth had been dead a very long time, too ... talk about an interesting coincidence.

Cloud downed a cup of coffee, grimacing faintly at the taste, and stole a glance at Zack. "Anyway. You two should go back to bed."

"Oh, we definitely will," Zack replied with fake innocence. "Mm, fluffy pillows, warm soft blankets, sleeping in until noon..."

Cloud scrunched up his nose in similarly fake annoyance. "Ass."

Zack turned back to the counter with a chuckle and finished saran-wrapping his jam sandwiches. "Yep. But you like me like that. Here's your snack, Cloudypoo."

Cloud blinked at the plastic bag he was now holding. Tifa smothered a giggle at his nonplussed expression.

"Zack, I told you..." he growled tiredly. "Oh, never mind." A sigh. "We need to get going."

"Wait a sec." Tifa grabbed a Thermos bottle from under the sink and quickly poured in the rest of the coffee. "Alright, I packed us overnight bags, I don't think we'll need anything else... Oh, the bar."

"We can take care of it!" Zack exclaimed, a little too enthusiastic for her peace of mind.

"... Have you ever worked in a bar before?"

"Well. No. But it can't be that hard, right?"

Tifa winced. On one hand, losing a whole day of work would make her checkbook harder to balance, especially with three more adults to feed. On the other hand... She'd feel better if Zack worked with one of her usual temps first, and there was no way she could get one on such short notice.

"It's alright, there's no need. There's a closed sign, put it on the door and leave it locked - and there's a delivery coming in at noon but it's all prepaid, you just have to sign the sheet and bring the boxes in."

What other advice did they need? She was sure she was forgetting something...

"Tifa, I'm sure they'll survive," Cloud said dryly. "Let's go."

She dumped the towel on the back of a chair and followed him out, quickly braiding her still-damp hair. "Yes, yes - ah! Cloud's PHS number is on the emergency contact list by the bar."

Cloud crossed the doorway connecting the stockroom to the garage and went to his bike. Zack and Aeris had followed them; Zack slipped past her to go open the garage door, but Tifa couldn't move to join Cloud. Stopped in her tracks on the threshold, she stared at Aeris helplessly, the surrealism of the situation hitting her once again. To think that she was here, that she wasn't a ghost or a memory - alive, breathing, standing somewhere she'd never been, somewhere Tifa had never thought she'd be.

Aeris wrapped her in a quick, tight hug, and almost immediately released her; Tifa's arms stayed frozen in surprise and uncertainty, half-lifted to return it but not daring to complete the gesture before the moment was gone.

"Be careful on the road. And... I wish you could tell Yuffie, I'm so sorry about her father."

"We'll tell her - I promise, when the moment is right." Tifa made a faint grimace. "It's just not going to be an easy moment to find."

Before she could lose her resolve again Tifa turned away and took the helmet Cloud held out to her. Her jacket was there too; she slipped it on, and then she straddled the saddle behind him. Zack was standing by the garage door, admiring the bike.

When Cloud started the engine and drove the bike out they were both waving, Aeris's slender frame leaning against Zack's side. Tifa kept them in sight until they turned the corner, and then she leaned against Cloud's back and stared at nothing as he drove.

He didn't speak at all until they were halfway to Kalm.

"Doesn't feel like any of it was real, huh."

Aeris in her kitchen, tears in her eyes because of her mother. Zack making sandwiches.

Sephiroth in her attic.

"No," Tifa said. "It really doesn't."


End file.
